Out on DVD.
In this movie, Edward Norton plays Eisenheim, a peasant boy cum spectacular magician who is still in love with a girl (the ever 'talented' Jessica Biel) of royal blood. She is caught in a political engagement to the corrupt and arrogant crown prince (Rufus Sewell), but longs for her true love, Eisenheim. Paul Giamatti is the police inspector and crown prince loyalist with torn allegiances.
This movie is a solid mystery, with pretty pictures, great performances, and a good score. Director Neil Burger, a relative newcomer, imparts his story with striking cinematography and interesting visual effects.
Compared to the other quality magician movie of 2006, The Prestige, this movie is just not that great. The Prestige was much more engrossing and struck several deeper chords.
(legal note - hearsay is when one person recounts the words of a third party; it is forbidden in court except for a few exceptions)
Friday, February 9, 2007
The Illusionist - B
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3 comments:
interesting. i'd wondered about it, but i couldn't imagine that it was as good as the prestige. how does biel do? i'm not sure what "talented" means.
Biel does fine but looks too exotic for this period film. I think "talented" has something to do with Biel's posterior, which is the only thing with more than one-dimension in this movie.
I finally got around to watching this and, since I agree down the line with your review, see no reason to review it myself. That said, I was really bothered with the "illusions" that we were asked to believe in, such as the butterflies carrying a handkerchief or the orange tree growing. While the film later alludes to how these might have been accomplished, the actual illusion was glaringly CGI. This jolted me out of the world I was asked to believe in. While The Prestige may have asked us to believe in magic, it doesn't ask us to believe in illusions that were impossible (for that day) to achieve as they were filmed.
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