Edward Norton is one of my favorite actors, so I’ve been wanting to see his 2006 film The Illusionist ever since it came out. But it didn’t last very long in the theaters and I kind of forgot about it until recently. At any rate, I was finally able to rent the DVD the other day. Here’s a quick review of the movie.
The film takes place at the turn of the century, and Norton plays a magician/illusionist named Eisenheim who has traveled all over the world learning highly technical (for the time) tricks that immediately separate him from other stage magicians of the day. We first encounter him in Vienna, where he has been performing for a few weeks. This time, however, his show is interrupted by Inspector Uhl (played by Paul Giamatti), the Chief of Police, who is there to arrest Eisenheim on various charges, including fraud and treason.
From there, we get the rest of the story in flashbacks. We first go back to Eisenheim’s youth when he first was interested in magic. He was the son of a poor cabinetmaker, and became great friends with a girl named Sophie (Jessica Biel). The problem was, Sophie was royalty and her family wouldn’t let her consort with Eisenheim anymore. They separated the young people just before they could elope. That was the event that compelled Eisenheim to start traveling.
We then jump forward to the present time, a few weeks before the performance at which Eisenheim is being arrested. Eisenheim’s first show in Vienna is a hit, as he performs tricks that the populace has never seen before. Everyone talks about him so much that the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) even comes to the show. When Eisenheim asks for a volunteer from the audience, Leopold offers up his fiancée, who happens to be Sophie.
Eisenheim and Sophie recognize each other and fall in love all over again. The problem is that Leopold will never let Sophie go because marrying her would bring him many political advantages that he cannot afford to give up. To further complicate matters, Inspector Uhl and other police officers have been following Sophie and they know that she’s been meeting with Eisenheim. This will cause a whole other set of complications for the couple and will put them both in danger.
That’s about as much of the plot as I can get into without talking about the ending — which is billed as a “surprise” but actually isn’t much of a twist if you pay attention throughout the film.
My Reaction: First, I want to say that I’ve read and heard many comments from other people who have seen the film and those who didn’t like it always point to Eisenheim’s tricks as the main reason for their displeasure. Apparently, a lot of folks thought the tricks were far too complicated for the time period depicted in the film and that they looked too fake thanks to the CGI the filmmakers employed. While I totally understand how people could be turned off by that aspect, I wasn’t one of them. The tricks didn’t bother me at all.
I ended up liking The Illusionist more than I thought I would. The story was very interesting to me and there were so many different things going on that I didn’t have time to get bored. Yes, I had the ending figured out pretty early on (and I’m sure you’ll be able to do the same), but that didn’t lessen my overall enjoyment of the movie. I think the biggest reason for that was the fantastic cast that was assembled here. Norton, Giamatti, Biel, and Sewell were all excellent in their respective roles, and that of course made the movie a lot more fun to watch.
Overall, I liked The Illusionist and thought it was an engrossing film. However, I have a feeling that it’s one of those movies that won’t play well the second time through because you’ll already know all the answers. Nevertheless, I give it 7.0 stars out of 10 and recommend that you see it.
In my never ending quest to keep my iPod filled with good audiobooks, I spent some time last night searching the Internet for some new additions. I’ve just about finished listening to all the current Librivox titles that I’m interested in, so I thought I might finally have to start paying for my audiobooks. But then I came across the official website of a brand new book called