One of the films that I'm hoping really works this summer is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which pairs Nic Cage and Jay Baruchel as a teacher and student using magic to beat back the force's of evil.

It appears that the main bad guy in the film is Alfred Molina's character, and it's a good summer for Molina and Jerry Bruckheimer movies.  I didn't care much for "Prince Of Persia," but Molina had the showiest supporting role in the film, and he seemed to relish every moment of it.

In "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Molina appears to be playing a much bigger role and a much darker role.  It looks like he's made of bugs in one of the scenes in the trailer, and I hope he skirts that edge of too-freaky-for-kids that I always loved from summer movies when I was a kid.

What may help with that is the supporting cast of other bad guys, including the one we're premiering today in our exclusive character poster debut.  Gregory Woo plays Sun Lok, and in today's poster, we're told that he is, in fact, "The Wizard."

We've seen some glimpses of his characters in the early trailers for the film, and it appears he is able to turn himself into a giant Chinese dragon, which I'm sure is just one of his powers.

I'm curious to see just how large the scale of this movie is, and how much of an international flavor it has.  That's something that could distinguish it from the "Harry Potter" films, and obviously that's going to be a point of reference when you're doing something about people teaching other people magic and a battle between good and evil.  For all of the importance of the events going on in the "Potter" films, it all feels like it's going on in a small corner of England.  This movie appears to hop around the world, incorporating mythology and design elements from many cultures.

Here's the character poster:

I'm liking what we've seen from this one so far, and I hope for Bruckheimer's sake that this one succeeds in all the ways that "Prince Of Persia" fell flat.

We'll know soon enough.  "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is in theaters July 14, 2010.

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