The Illusionist Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Nothing is what it seems
A magician in turn-of-the-last-century Vienna falls in love with a woman well above his social standing. When she becomes engaged to the crown prince, the magician uses his powers to free her and undermine the stability of the royal house of Vienna.
| Edward Norton | Eisenheim |
| Paul Giamatti | Inspector Uhl |
| Jessica Biel | Sophie |
| Rufus Sewell | Crown Prince Leopold |
| Eddie Marsan | Josef Fischer |
| Jake Wood | Jurka |
| Tom Fisher | Willigut |
| Aaron Johnson | Young Eisenheim |
| Eleanor Tomlinson | Young Sophie |
| Karl Johnson | Doctor/Old Man |
| Vincent Franklin | Loschek |
| Nicholas Blane | Herr Doebler |
| Philip McGough | Dr. Hofzinser |
| Erich Redman | Count Rainer |
| Michael Carter | Von Thurnburg |
| Neil Burger |
7.70 out of 10 (31827 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Just didn't do it for me...
posted on 18 Aug 2009A dark fairytale about a magician of extraordinary ability and his childhood sweetheart, now a duchess set to marry an evil prince. Part story of forbidden love, part investigation into the magician's secrets.Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this movie. Edward Norton, Jessica Biel & Co. adopt silly fake European accents. Paul Giamatti was alright, I guess. I just wasn't feeling this film from the start. (Maybe I was having an off day...) The movie gets a little more interesting as it takes an eerie turn.For an alternative magician mystery, I'd recommend Christopher Nolan's THE PRESTIGE (oddly also released in 2006).
The best movie that I've seen since The 25th Hour
posted on 14 Aug 2009Of being a Ed Norton fan I was very excited about seeing this movie even though I had to travel 45 minutes away to see it. I was expecting a great movie but I never though the whole theater was going to applaud at the end. This movie was that good. Paul Giamatti also did an excellent job as he too is one of my favorites. Jessica Beil even was great and before she was one of the reasons for me to not see the movie.The movie started off with credits that worked very well with dissolves that were beautifully done and gave the movie a great start. Than it showed Ed Norton in a chair, just chilling there. Then he gets arrested. But why does he get arrested? The directer doesn't tell you right off the bat.The movie also describes the illusionist's childhood with a great flashback of how he met his first love and why she was taken away from him. It also describes why he became a magician.The magic / illusions that was performed in this movie was very well done and I'm trying to figure out how the did them from the great camera work that was credited to the film. Understanding that Neil Buger hasn't had much of a resume in the past really surprised me and I know there will be a lot more work for him in the future.This film can be scene by mature children from a brief sex scene (no nudity). The best thing I can tell you about this movie is that there is a twist at the end, and it should make you smile. Perhaps not a Primal Fear twist but enough to keep you talking for the ride home.
Fantastic
posted on 14 Aug 2009This Film was certainly a surprise. I expected a simple love story, and the entailing feminine drama and my subsequent boredom. When I viewed the film I was enthralled by the original telling of the story, as well as the inventive way it was shot. The circular transitions were a delight and none of the scenes lacked anything photographically. The final twists are worth the short one hour and fifty minute wait. The reveal of the final twist was absolutely astoundingly well done. Please see this film, it is one of the most original and well done films of the past year. Starkly dissimilar to Miami Vice, ,which made me avoid movies theaters for 3 months. Enjoy a great film well worth the 5 dollar rental fee.
Pick a card any card
posted on 12 Aug 2009"The Illusionist" is a movie about an illusionist. The illusionist, Eisenheim (Edward Norton, one of the coolest actors ever) , was born in Vienna and as a young boy met a magician who showed him some cool tricks. He becomes fascinated with magic and decides to follow it as a career path (the movie is unclear whether he studied it at Uni or anything). As he grows up he forms a close relationship with a young girl called Sophie (Jessica Biel, who I've heard of but never seen in another movie, until I looked on IMDb.com and realised she's had bit roles in crappy movies such as "Elizabethtown" and "Cellular", which my friend Darren loved). Sophie is of noble blood and is strongly told not to hang out with Eisenheim, eventually seeing her taken away from him altogether. Eisenheim eventually runs away and travels the world.After many years he returns to Vienna to do some shows. His amazing tricks amaze everyone he encounters. One night he calls upon an audience member to volunteer and guess who it is? Sophie! Eisenheim becomes focused on getting back together with her and after an evening where they express their love physically he hatches a plan. It won't be easy though as Sophie is engaged and about to become a royal. Will the plan work? See it to find out.A great movie that keeps you enthralled and never misses a beat. A solid cast, most notably also starring Paul Giamatti (in his most challenging role since "Big Fat Liar") and Rufus Sewell.
Best Movie I've Seen All Year
posted on 12 Aug 2009I was completely and utterly captivated by watching The Illusionist. The storyline is very clever and beautifully written. Edward Norton did a phenomenal job, which was no surprise since he is amazing in every movie I have seen him in. I am very impressed with Jessica Biel. She was amazing. And of course Paul Giamatti was great as always.At first I did not think Biel and Norton would have chemistry, but really did. You, as the viewer, could feel the passion that these two characters had for each other. I was almost speechless.The Illusionist is one of the best films I have seen all year. It is absolutely beautiful and I would DEFINITELY recommend people to watch it. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!
The art of innocence
posted on 02 Aug 2009With a 7.7 rating and my expectations built up by a friend, I was completely disappointed during and at the end of the movie. The acting is good, the picture is beautiful... apart from that it's an excruciatingly predictable movie. The plot is obvious from very early on. Some people argue that people should enjoy the movie and not focus on the plot, but I can't honestly enjoy waiting for something it's obvious that is going to happen. Even more when the title is "The Illusionist"... the beauty of magic or illusionism is to make people wonder how something is possible and there wasn't much to wonder about here.A movie only for the ones who master "the art of innocence". Skeptics, thinkers and everyone eager for something new, please stay away from this movie or at the end of it you'll be as frustrated as me.
A compelling mix of magic and mystery.
posted on 02 Aug 2009Edward Norton's characterization of the title character provides a great deal of the credibility for this highly romantic mystery film. The illusionist, Eisenheim, is a confident, arrogant man who reserves and guards his emotions for the things he really loves. His self-assuredness does not derive from insecurity or some other psychological weakness, but from his achievement of perfecting his skills to an extremely high level of mastery. He creates magic that baffles the mind and only he fully understands the science behind his illusions.Overall "The Illusionist" is very enjoyable. It is also unsatisfying. That is caused by cliques in the plot and in the behavior of the characters. It is sometimes all too clear what will happen, and the characters sometimes do things that contradict their otherwise insightful personalities."The Illusionist" is a good looking film, with good performances and smooth direction. The magic is especially enjoyable, and the mystery, though not imponderable, is enticing.
Relies Heavily on Viewer's Imagination...
posted on 29 Jul 2009Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is not enough dialog in my opinion. It also relies too much on Sepia coloring and dark stage scenes and is fairly predictable. The ending came as no surprise to any of my group viewing it. I wanted to know more about everything, the illusions, the characters, the society that was so entranced by the Illusionist. The movie did not deliver on any of that.I also think that Paul Giamatti was miscast in this. He was perfect for 'Lady In The Water' and did a superb job in that movie.Don't get me wrong, I recommend this movie especially compared to other stuff that comes out of Hollywood.
It was an excellent movie
posted on 25 Jul 2009The Illusionist was a brilliant movie and a shocker! This movie made you question whether Eisenheim's tricks were real or an illusion even though the title gave it away. This was one of the best movies of the year. It was an intelligent and well written movie with great actors as well. This movie had a little bit of Romeo and Juliet in it. It was a perfect blend of all the things that make a movie good. Edward Norton is a great actor as well as Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel. You couldn't of asked for a better cast. They play their parts perfectly. This movie is a perfect mystery movie and i guarantee you that you'll love it. All i have to say is "Nothing is what it seems."
A Little Hocus Pocus mit Your Strudel?
posted on 25 Jul 2009"The Illusionist" is a fun bit of mitteleuropa fluff. There's lots of pretty sets from the Czech Republic, both architecture and pastoral scenes.Paul Giamatti as a police officer gives us yet another masterful performance. He was convincing as a drunk in "Sideways," as a boxing manager in "Cinderella Man," and he's convincing here as a Viennese cop from a common background trying to reach the top of society by carrying out the will of the powerful but not destroying a magician for whom he feels some sympathy.Jessica Biel is really lovely as an aristocrat torn between family duty and true love. Unlike too many other actresses her age, Biel really convinces that she is of another era. There is nothing of the jarringly anachronistic twenty-first century mall rat, valley girl, or post-feminist about her performance. She fills out her lush costumes with both her body and her soul.Rufus Sewell is so good as the evil Crown Prince Leopold that I wish that there were a slew of Hapsburg movies in the pipe so we could boo and hiss him again and again. Let's make a movie version of "Janosik" or "Good Soldier Svejk" or remake "The Prisoner of Zenda" just to keep Rufus Sewell in that costume, toting that sword, screaming those lines.Ed Norton has his champions; I don't get it. I think he's fine, of course, but I'm not all gaga about him the way some are. He's good here as a magician / lover / trickster, but he didn't take my breath away.Philip Glass' score was fun, in places, in that it reflected mitteleuropean music, but there weren't enough over the top moments, and mitteleuropean music is all about going over the top, in terms of technical aspects like tempo and emotional aspects like schmaltz. Also, one wishes that Glass had made use of instruments other than violins and the occasional flute. A cimbolom, for example, a zither, or a Slovak fujara. The score for "The Third Man" has not been bested as the most memorable mitteleuropean-influenced film score.The story, of Eisenheim, a magician who bests the world around him through his wits, is reminiscent of Jewish folktales in which a very clever Jewish man outwits his better-armed, Gentile opponents. The movie doesn't make much of these cultural resonances.Also, I wonder about "Eisenheim"'s similarity to "Einstein." In one of his onstage tricks, Eisenheim creates the illusion of an orange tree growing from seed to maturity in a few moments. He introduces this trick by talking about the relativity of time, which, of course, brings Einstein to mind. Again, the movie does not dwell on this.As much as I liked this movie, I wish it had been richer. The real mitteleuropean world it depicts is a busy, lively, crowded, warm, complex one; I wish some of that had made its way onto the screen. The movie is slow, and not the good kind of slow. Its slowness could have been livened up with more on screen -- why not give Giamatti a peasant lover in embroidered aprons who could provide some depth to scenes that consist, only, of Giamatti staring ahead, looking dumbfounded, as he tries to figure something out? Otherwise, though, "The Illusionist" is a fun and pleasant movie.
A disappointment compared to 'The Prestige'
posted on 25 Jul 2009What a shame that two magic-related films were released at approximately the same time, and that this one came first in the US, deterring cinephiles from checking out Christopher Nolan's 'The Prestige,' a far superior film on all counts. Both films are mysteries dealing with a troubled magician and a dead woman in turn-of-the-century Europe, but the similarities stop there. Too bad that the talents of Philip Glass were wasted on this film. The music was excellent, but the only other thing this film has going for it is the scenery. The plot is lame and unoriginal. The love story and characters are hardly developed to render them believable. The script is terrible. The accents are ridiculous. What are these people, British or Austrian? Or, like the messenger kid at the end of the film, American? Not much could really be expected from Jessica Biel, but even Norton's acting was cringeworthy (notably during the scene where he pulls "Sophie" from the water). At least for his part, Giamatti made do with the lousy script, like he had to in 'Lady in the Water.' The kids might appreciate the fairly elementary plot and simple language of 'The Illusionist' like they would be amazed by sleight-of-hand and card tricks. However, adults, don't bother with this film - get 'The Prestige' for a real magic show: a skillfully crafted, spectacularly entertaining mystery/thriller.
This is not a Review. This is only an Illusion.
posted on 23 Jul 2009"The Illusionist" is a unique film that combines two often stale genres into something fresh: the lush romantic period piece and the "AHA!" mystery thriller (a genre M. Night Shamalyan has single-handedly run into the ground recently). Helmed by a first time director (Neil Burger), based on a short story, and featuring an eclectic cast, "The Illusionist" had the perfect set-up to be a monumental disaster. With a graceful slight-of-hand, it ends up being something very good.As with any run-of-the-mill period piece, there's a lavish attention to the set designs and costumes, here representing late nineteenth century Vienna. Director Burger puts a nice spin on the same-old, same-old with an acute attention to lighting (especially in the dreamily over-exposed flashbacks) and old fashioned camera techniques (witness the circular camera's eye closing to transition from scenes) to give the film the feel of being a fond memory of a classic movie from a bygone era.The central romance where Edward Norton's title character and Jessica Biel's Dutchess are star-crossed lovers kept apart because of class and society, had all the makings of a snore-inducing cheese-athon. Executed in an understated manner that services the greater plot, it ends up being anything but. Norton's performance, especially in the second half of the film when he turns into a man of very few words, had the potential to be one-note. As an actor, he speaks volumes with his eyes. Biel, a former teen idol and TV star, seemed a horrific choice for this role. She pulls of the nifty trick of being quite good. Even better are Rufus Sewell as the tyrannical crown-prince and Paul Giamatti as the chief inspector. Using a short story as the source material, characterizations had the potential to be paper-thin, but these seasoned veterans make the most of their lines and scenes adding terror, humor, and gravitas through their vocal and physical deliveries where lesser actors would've been wooden and cold. The entire cast also worked together very well utilizing their odd, vaguely European and aristorcatic accent. Everyone used it so consistently and earnestly, it didn't seem to matter after awhile that the accent was unnecessary.A more over-eager or pretentious director may have completely sabotaged the fantastic ending to "The Illusionist" and cheated the audience. Handled deftly by Burger, the grande finale where "all is revealed" is a wholly organic and satisfying conclusion that rewards the patient viewer and fulfills the lofty promises of the themes presented throughout the work."The Illusionist" boasts an excellent music score from minimalist composer Phillip Glass that easily rivals his great work done in "Candyman" and "The Hours." Norton and Giamatti treat us to some of the best "staring" since the days of silent films. The look on Giamatti's face and the positioning of his raised eyebrows as he watches Norton perform his illusions coupled with Norton's eyes as he pulls off his tricks are priceless.
What makes a movie really good
posted on 19 Jul 2009To me, the movie should be a perfect art form because a scene can be shot and re-shot until it is exactly what the director wants to say. And yet most movies are not really very good because the script is usually not very good. They may be unbelievable or insipid, or you just get the feeling that the characters just cannot really act that way. However, in this case, we have the perfect combination of a really good and complex intelligent script combining with wonderful acting....Edward Norton plus the other three top actors, to produce a most enjoyable movie. To me the proof is that it leads to discussions after the movie, about the movie. Academy award material? I could imagine all three male leads being nominated.
Nothing to write home about
posted on 17 Jul 2009While I found this film watchable, I also found it to be rather flat. It was pleasantly shot, but I think I would have been rather more excited at the conclusion of a Sigmund Freud biopic set in Vienna. The Illusionist was more than a touch maudlin and I couldn't help but feel that Philip Glass' score was a retread of many other scores he has put together in the past.Norton carried the film exactly as I expected: I wasn't surprised and I didn't end up feeling particularly connected. This movie was a predictable romantic period piece with a little bit of cgi thrown-in to spice the paste. Overall I left feeling that this will be one of those films mostly forgotten after a years time. For a movie with so much magical content, it didn't manage to leave any with me to take home or remember.
Rather light little tale about a magician and his love...nothing shocking or surprising
posted on 11 Jul 2009The Illusionist is good but that's just it...that's where it ends. The film has plenty of strong actors, a decent story, potential for a great period piece but instead the entire film beginning to end is just okay. The acting is 'just okay', the direction is 'just okay', the story...'just okay' and the twist at the end is easy to see coming which is unfortunate because it holds a lot of stock in it but I figured it out and I rarely figure anything out in a film with a twist. Despite taking place in Vienna at the turn of the century there is nothing historic about the film and despite moments of action, mystery and intrigue there just isn't anything to shout about...it's an all around average film...not bad...just not impressive.Edward Norton is the lead as mysterious magician Eisenheim who, as a boy, fell for a girl far from his social standing and then lost touch with her seemingly forever. He traveled the world and became a renowned magician. It has been a long time since Norton took the helm in a lead role and there is no doubt that Norton is a great actor, he blew me away in Primal Fear, and American History X, both Academy Award nominated roles. However Norton's return to lead is less than impressive. He does captivate and he's easy to watch but his role is so bland and although he does his utmost to capture the mystery and romance it never quite flies the way it could or should have. Jessica Biel is his lady friend who he reunites with many years later and begins an illicit affair. I don't know if Biel is a good actor yet, I haven't decided. I know that I've seen her in some real stinkers including Stealth. Her English accent is bad and overdone, but her chemistry with Norton is good and they play well off each other so they do alright in the roles. One of my newest favorite actors Paul Giamatti plays Inspector Uhl who is investigating a murder and all paths one way or another keep leading him to the Magician. Giamatti's role is unfortunately small and does not allow him to do anything fantastic which is kind of the ongoing feat behind this film. Finally the nemesis is played by the appropriately evil looking Rufus Sewell as the Crown Prince who appears to be the most realistic suspect in the murder but no one dares go after. He's overbearing and angry and a great nemesis to Norton but as with everyone else's part he is held back by the script and story.With more epic proportions, The Illusionist could have really been something. And it's not that it's not worth seeing...in fact it's a cute little film and actually a very nice twisting sort of romance but it's just not as spectacular as it could have been and that is disappointing. New film maker Neil Burger has a habit of overlooking details that could make a film great. His very first Indie film "Interview With The Assassin" could have really been incredible but instead was average at best and The Illusionist falls to the same fate. So worth watching but won't blow you away....get something else with it to satisfy you. Average in every way. 7/10
goof not a goof
posted on 09 Jul 2009a comment was made that the wound was to the left of Jessica's shoulder and the blood was to the right of the horse but this is not a goof because Jessica was laying to the right of the horse when it carried her away.pay more attention next time.as far as performances go i thought Paul did an amazing job. He really carried out his role well and proved himself as an actor.i did think that they could have done a little better at hiding the twist. as soon as i saw the doctor, i knew he was the magician in the beginning of the movie but if you weren't paying attention then i can see how the twist would come as a surprise. all in all i give the movie 2 thumbs up.
What in the movie is real & what's an illusion?
posted on 09 Jul 2009This movie actually surprised me. I'm no big fan of Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti is the kind of actor who impresses you in one movie and disappoints you in another. I have barely heard of Jessica Biel so when I heard the line-up, I was hardly jumping up saying "YES! let's go and watch this!". But after finally watching it, I am forced to admit that this time I was badly wrong because I enjoyed every minute.Norton plays Eisenheim, a magician and illusionist who is able to perform magical illusions which no-one can explain. He is dismissed by some as a fraudster and a charlatan (especially by the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince whom Eisenheim humiliated in public) but in general, the public love him and his shows and they are all sell-outs. It's this humiliation which I referred to that causes the Crown-Prince to order the police (a chief inspector played by Giamatti) to shut down Eisenheim's act and drive him out of town. But Eisenheim has no intention of leaving because the Crown Prince's fiancée is actually a childhood sweetheart of Eisenheim and the Illusionist is determined not to lose her a second time.Needless to say, the Crown Prince doesn't take kindly to a charlatan and a trickster moving in on his girl and so he sets out to bring down Eisenheim by trying to discredit the illusion acts. You can guess already that Eisenheim is two steps ahead of the Crown Prince and a plot is hatched so he and his sweetheart can finally run away together. A sub-plot has the Crown Prince plotting to overthrow his father, the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire so Princy Boy can take over. This is obviously high treason and Mr Prince decides that the Illusionist is a threat to his cunning dastardly plans.The acting was really good and the script is great. I highly recommend this movie to anybody interested in this type of story.
Great movie!
posted on 09 Jul 2009I don't usually watch movies about magicians and such; they usually lose my interest pretty quickly. This movie is different. I like Jessica Biel's acting, and Norton did a good job in his dry manner in the movie. I don't often connect to movies here in Korea, but this one caught my attention with its cast right off, then with its interesting plot. The storyline is interesting enough to keep you captivated, and yet obscure enough to intrigue you until the end. It's good. I like movies that make me think, and yet aren't so deep that I am exhausted at the end. This is a great movie. Definitely worth the watch! Great job, writers, producers, and actors/actresses.
Smoke and mirrors, unsexy romance; pretty scenes
posted on 01 Jul 2009The Illusionist, NYTimes film critic Stephen Holden says, "rouses your slumbering belief in the miraculous." Maybe. Its grandly staged magic shows in nineteenth-century costume are very pretty. But this fairy tale for adults with its suspenseful but simplistic plot and its feeble finale has you just plain slumbering at times too. To call it "the miraculous" is glorifying what Eisenheim the Illusionist does -- just super-good magic tricks that con naïve nineteenth-century audiences in the age of Mesmer and Liszt. And Eisenheim's tricks are inevitably marred, cinematically, by the fact that he's mostly not doing them but having them done for him on film, processed in by the editors and special effects guys.Finally Holden also says this finds a good use for Edward Norton's "disturbing inscrutability." Is that what it is, though? Or is it a quality of being technically skilled but cold, mechanical, lacking in presence -- as well as limp in the area of sex appeal? (In fact the movie's sole purveyor of animal attraction is Jessica Biel as Sophie, the noblewoman both the Crown Prince and Eisenheim want. She and Eisenheim were secret teenage sweethearts even though she was an aristocrat and he was a carpenter's son (don't ask). She's sexy, but due to some shortcomings in the acting line she's a bit limp too -- you can't remember anything she says -- but if you look at her lips or her cleavage, that does the much-needed job of giving the screen a pulse.Actually, though Norton is the Illusionist, and his romance with Ms. Biel, revived when he returns from fifteen years of wandering in the Far East, highly dangerous now that she's semi-betrothed to the Crown Prince, is the movie's plot's main focus, still the movie wouldn't get off the ground if it weren't for the fact that Paul Giamatti has an equally important role as the head cop the Prince sends in to hound Eisenheim's footsteps. And that's not enough either: Rufus Sewall in his scene-chewing performance as the obnoxious Crown Prince gives Norton and Giamatti a very necessary run for their money. Put them all together, though, and despite the fact that this is a romance, you still haven't got a single male hearthrob -- not in these roles.Paul Giamatti is an impressively skillful mechanical "character" actor -- something that we don't necessarily associate with movie acting, but which movies nonetheless always need. He can deliver any tone or personality, within the limits of his schlubby looks -- which aren't really so confining, given that the world arguably contains more schlubs than Hugh Jackmans. His technical skill and adaptability would mean little if he didn't have that cuddly, slightly goofy but still smart and competent quality that makes his characters believable, sympathetic, and fun to watch. There's always an edge of a twinkle in Paul's face, when he's working well. There's the bustle of the buffoon in him. He's best as an amiable loser, as he is as Harvey Pekar in American Splendor and as Miles in Sideways, his best roles to date, not to say immortal ones. Since then he has gone on to bigger and better checks, but not better acting opportunities or as good movies, though his work is always admirable and he brings palpable enthusiasm to his work. He inhabits Herr Uhl, the Viennese chief inspector of police he has to play in The Illusionist, as convincingly as ever, but the man is such a dutiful and serious good-boy-in-school type, that when the laughs come they tend to seem unintentional.Rufus Sewall, another versatile character actor whose looks give him the embarrassing additional option of being a leading man, is trying so hard to be strange and unpleasant and scary as Crown Prince Leopold, with his big dark over-precise moustache and thin parenthetical made-up looking eyebrows, that his looks in modern terms are so effete as to make him seem "gay." Compare Pascal Greggory as Jean Hervey in Patrice Chéreau's Gabrielle, a similarly effete character who's so subtly done he becomes complex and tragic. Sewall's Leopold is obtrusive, joining into the magic show at Eisenheim's command performance at court to his own embarrassment; but Leopold's menace in Biel's stiff staging seems a bit theatrical and empty. The worst thing he does on screen (to anybody else, anyway) is smack a lady, despite his wearing a sword and brandishing a pistol. The way he meets his end isn't surprising. Before that he has long turned into a barking stick figure. If only Sewall had been encouraged to play the Prince straighter (in both senses) and more vulnerable, the character would have been more interesting and the story would have had more subtlety.Simplistic and greeting-card conventional as it is, The Illusionist is a good-looking movie in a traditional costume-pic sort of way, and you have the feeling it actually was probably shot either in Vienna or somewhere that for Americans can pass for Vienna. There are nice street scenes and crowd scenes and the look is glossy without being overbearing or calling attention to itself -- it doesn't surprise you either, though.After the heroine comes to grief, things get messy and a bit confusing, where before they had all been orderly and well-paced. It's not clear what's gone wrong, but bad editing certainly is a factor. The way everything is explained in a montage of flash-shot reviews of past moments doesn't make up for the anticlimax. The Illusionist has a few good scenes, but no high drama. It is not helped by the chilly little voice Norton adopts, perhaps imitating some Forties costume drama, which the director himself may have wished to evoke.
Very well done film
posted on 20 Aug 2009After a very modest debut in 2002 with "Interview with the Assassin", director Neil Burger practically came out of nowhere with this impressive period piece that blends subtly the artistic vision of an "arthouse" film with the commercial appeal of a summer blockbuster. "The Ilusionist" is a remarkably well-done tale of drama and romance with a touch of fantasy, that while probably not entirely original or historically accurate, surely not only brings back the joy of watching a period piece, but the overall pleasure of watching movies as a whole. This may sound exaggerated (and probably it is), but in a year lacking good surprises, this is a film that really stands out among the rest. Not an easy feat for a modest independent film.Based on the short story by Steven Millhauser, "The Ilusionist" is the tale of two different, but very similar persons. Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) is in charge of arresting Eisenheim (Edward Norton), the famous illusionist that has shocked Vienna with his extraordinary talent and nearly impossible tricks. Something has done Eisenheim that has forced the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) to order his arrest and Uhl must now do the deed. However, soon Uhl discovers that the secrets of Eisenheim the Ilusionist are related to Sophie (Jessica Biel), Prince Leopold's fiancée.Adapted to the screen by Burger himself, "The Ilusionist" is a tale appropriately surrounded by illusions. As Uhl's character tries to uncover the nature of Eisenheim's powers, we get deeper and deeper inside the illusion crafted by the writers. While the story could had easily being about the confrontation between the illusionist and the detective, it opts for the romance angle, a move that while sacrifices a great deal of originality, is well-developed and probably suits the overall tone and mood Burger crafts with his romanticizes version of the turn of the century Vienna. The story in turn comprises both Uhl's investigation as well as the tale of the forbidden love between Eisenheim and Sophie, keeping a nice balance between both and a good deal of mystery that makes the final conclusion a great spectacle.Visually the film is extremely good for the budget Burger had, considering its not an easy task to recreate a period piece. A highlight of the film, is the beautiful cinematography (by Dick Pope) that evokes the early silent films in a way that fits the movie perfectly. Philip Glass' score is very good, although at times feels a bit too modern (like out of place), giving an odd sensation. Still, the film works remarkably well thanks to Burger's precise direction that give life to Millhauser's story with a captivating artistic vision.Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti are both excellent in their roles, being another of the strong points of the film. Norton delivers a classy performance that once again shows off that his talent is still there and only needs the right direction. Giamatti delivers the best acting in the movie, as Chief Inspector Uhl, he becomes our eyes and takes us through Eisenheim's illusions in a very real, albeit subtle performance. Jessica Biel is probably the weakest link in the cast, as while she looks the part, shows almost no chemistry with Norton, as if she was uncomfortable. The surprise comes from Rufus Sewell, who is both frightening and charming as Crown Prince Leopold in a way that it's a joy to hate him."The Ilusionist" is a terrific film considering Burger's little experience, but it has some small problems that are impossible to not notice. First of all, it's probably quite predictable, due to its unoriginal love story. However, this by no means makes it a boring film, as Burger's storytelling makes the same old story look new and fresh again, making up for its unoriginal tale. The CGI used in the film is a bit excessive and noticeable, but again, nothing that would spoil the entertainment it provides. Finally, as written above, I thought that Biel's performance is clearly overshadowed by her cast-mates, who deliver a wonderful job making Biel look a bit out of place.Despite those troubles, "The Ilusionist" succeeds in delivering a captivating story that never becomes boring or tiresome. Without the budget of a blockbuster, Burger creates one of the best films of the year, without compromising his vision and with very good results. He certainly shows promise, let's hope his talent is not another illusion. 8/10