The Illusionist
Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel; Directed by Neil Burger
When Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) arrives in Vienna to entertain the masses with his masterfully magical talents, he is immediately praised by critics who affirm that his gifts range closer to 'art' than the usual coin-and-card tricks the local amateurs perform. His talents are so persuasive in fact, that the Crown Prince and future Emperor of Austria (Rufus Sewell) decides to attend a performance one night. When Eisenheim requests a volunteer from the audience for a particularly unsettling trick, the Prince volunteers his would-be-fiancé, Sophie (Jessica Biel). Things get very complicated when Eisenheim recognizes her as the long lost love he had known as a teenager. The former lovers make plans soon after to leave the city in secret, but the Prince's watchful eye and the spies of the city's Chief Inspector will not make these plans at all easy to carry out.
Within the course of an hour, this film changed from a love story to a murder/mystery, and neither genre proved to be any more interesting than a daytime soap opera. The characters were fairly one-dimensional and acted predictably. The great 'twist' at the climax of the film wasn't hard to anticipate, at least not for anyone whose attention can be kept up for the first twenty minutes of the film, as everything you need to know is revealed in that time span. The only two aspects of this film that made an above-average impression were the gold and sepia-tinged cinematography by Dick Pope, and the ominously ethereal orchestral score by Phillip Glass. The relationships between the characters were so contrived and conventional to me that I ended up not really caring what happened to any of the characters, except perhaps for the Chief Inspector (played by the never-disappointing Paul Giammati), whose moral compass would play a hand in his mortal fate near the end of the story.
(Spoiler): By the end of the film, I came to realize that this movie was really just a regurgitation of Romeo and Juliet. All of the same elements are here; two lovers from opposite sides of the tracks who make plans to run away together and live happily ever after, complications from jealous relatives, and a faked death that puts one of the lovers to rest in the minds of the townspeople. There's even the friendly 'friar' guide who gives said lover the concoction in order to carry out the plan. The only difference is that The Illusionist has a happy ending, and the lovers manage to succeed without actually killing themselves.
Although recognized at the Academy Awards for it's technical achievements, Neil Burger's film failed to impress audiences who had already been presented with Christopher Nolan's superior magician film, The Prestige. While the idea of involving an reclusive Austrian magician in a love triangle is admittedly an intriguing one, the unoriginal basic plot fails to keep our concentration on the plodding narrative. We've seen this kind of thing before, and no matter if you set in the past, in the future, or in an inter-dimensional subconscious plane, we still end up with the same result. Give. Us. Something. Different.
Grading:
Story = B-
Originality = C
DVD Features = N/A
Acting = B
Enjoyability = B-
Visuals = A
Overall = B-
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