The Illusionist

Decent movie, but forgettable. I watched it shortly after I saw "The Prestige,"
which came out around the same time.

By the trailers, it seemed like another Victorian era stage magician movie, this time in Vienna. Well, actually, Prague stands in for Vienna, but it plays its part beautifully. Pseudo-Euro accents, I suppose just to avoid sounding like Americans. But I don't care too much about accents, or I would have complained about Christian Bale's in "The Prestige".

Oddly enough, this movie also uses the same type of "end back where we began, except this time we know what it means" technique that "The Prestige" did. However, the tone of one movie was very different from the other.

Hmm. This one is not so much about revenge and obsession, nor the philosophy of magic, nor magic itself, nor even obsession with magic, but rather obsession with love. A more romantic story with more fantastical elements visually. A magician in Vienna (around 1900) ("Eisenheim", played by Edward Norton) is a master of his art, but he is still a "commoner", and being in love with his childhood friend, now a duchess (Jennifer Biel), well, it won't do. It won't do at all. Especially when the Prince (Rufus Sewell) wants to marry her. The Prince, an arrogant, highly intelligent rationalist fed up with the chaos and incompetance he sees in the empire he plans to inherit, sets his pet police inspector (Paul Giamatti) on the magician. The Chief Inspector is also anintelligent man, but more sympathetic to the magician. As for the duchess, she has always been in love with the magician. So they must perform their ultimate illusion, their audience the Prince and the Chief Inspector.

I preferred the "Prestige". While that one did have one very "unrealistic" (SF/fantasy) element, it did treat it honestly. And everything else felt solid. I thought the "Illusionist" cheated a little. Too many effects were too obviously CGI. Even if it was meant to be a subjective point of view (what the audience thinks it sees), it still was too much, I think. I didn't believe
in it. And if I didn't believe, the whole movie was...not as satisfying.
If we decide that it had a fantastical element a la "The Prestige", that also
is unsatisfying in this case. For "The Prestige", it didn't matter. For
"The Illusionist", it renders the movie rather pointless.
Perhaps the whole thing took place in the Matrix.

While the story, acting, music (Philip Glass!), and visual style of it were
good...yet...

It was all rather predictable. And this time I didn't have the excuse that
I'd read the book first! When the characters say things like "Make us
disappear!" and "He won't stop hunting us until we're dead!" and the
quarry is an illusionist, what else are we to expect? Eh?

Iconic image: an empty wooden chair alone on a stage...