Which will win — magic or dreams?

Those are the basic ideas behind the two big releases this week: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Inception.

Apprentice, released by the same Disney studio which made the original Fantasia 70 years ago, stars Nicolas Cage as the sorcerer who must stave off evil with the help of an accomplice, played by Jay Baruchel.

Meanwhile, Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio in a thriller involving people who can enter others’ dreams and steal, or plant, ideas.

Question is: Which will win out?

According to data from social-media film site Flixster, there’s likely room for both, given that the interest levels are almost polar opposites.

Apprentice has intense interest from those who want to see it, but that group is relatively small, though it does reach across several different demographics.

Inception has a lot of people clicking around the site, but the interest level is low — especially among women.

(For a graphic illustration, check out The Hollywood Reporter’s Bullseye column.)

It’ll likely mean a split box office, and possibly a return to the top for Despicable Me, which outperformed expectations last week in not only beating but trouncing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Among critics, Inception is far outpacing Apprentice – but again, the films appear to be polar opposites here.

Inception is seen as a smart, twisty, complicated thriller with spectacular sequences as directed by Christopher Nolan. Apprentice, meanwhile, is flashy and much more of an action picture, kind of following the same pattern set by director Jon Turtletaub’s National Treasure series.

Most critics went for Inception, which scored an 85 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, while Apprentice scored a 41 percent rating.

Inception gets words like “masterpiece” and “mind-blowing” bandied about, though its detractors used words like “boring” and “empty”.

Words used to describe Apprentice ranged from “exhilarating” and “turbo-charged” to “brain-dead” and “wet noodle”.