Review by Rob Zeitz

6/2/08

Rating: 12/20

The greatest trick performed by The Illusionist is to make the viewer think they’ve seen a great movie, when in fact they’ve seen something slightly above average. An ambitious screenplay structure of twists and turns, as well as an able performance by Paul Giamatti is overshadowed by a general sense of apathy regarding the fate of the main characters.

Ed Norton plays Eisenheim, a magician whose tricks go beyond sleight of hand and into the realm of the paranormal. Eisenheim falls for Sophie (Jessica Biel), a girl of noble birth, when the two are young children. Through flashbacks, we witness their star-crossed love dashed by the rigid class structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire circa 1900. But the two are reunited when Eisenheim returns to Vienna from the Far East. But by then, Sophie is engaged to Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), the ambitious and stern son of the Emperor. The story of Eisenheim and Sophie’s struggle to be together is framed by Chief Inspector Uhl (Giamatti).

One extremely distracting facet of this film were the accents. In an attempt to sound both noble and Austrian, Jessica Biel’s German accent phased in between German and British. Ed Norton also struggled to remain consistent with his accent, and Paul Giamatti pronouncing the letter W with a V sound was borderline comical.

The Illusionist did a good job of establishing that anything is possible in the world within the film. This is a product of the script as well as the setting. Turn of the century Austria was a real place, but is also unreal since most people (myself included) know little about it. The endless possibilities allow for the big twist at the end to not only be
believable, but to almost be expected (in a good way).

But Norton, Biel, and the story all come short of making the audience care about what happens to them. One is more concerned with the fate of the Inspector than of the illusionist himself. So the twists and turns of the story are interesting, but failed to invoke their desired emotional responses, at least from me.

I’d recommend The Illusionist to anyone who is a fan of Giamatti or Norton. And people who enjoy a dab of whimsy in their movies without being transported to another dimension. If you like The Twilight Zone, you should check out The Illusionist.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.