"The Illusionist," or "Yay! Real movies in the theaters again!"

Cafe Society
21

Although I wanted to like the film, I found it OK at best–one of your typical period pieces that’s reasonably well-acted, generally literate, impeccably designed, and dramatically inert. Not a total waste of time, but certainly a waste of promise.

There’s only one real character (Giammati’s), with everyone else being one-dimensional types. Norton’s always good, so he colors his performance nicely, but Biel & Sewell are blah, and while Giammati is fun, he was much better in the otherwise ridiculous Lady in the Water.

In fact, even though a very solid argument could be made that a film like LitW is demonstrably inferior to The Illusionist, at least the M.Night film swings for the fences, and while it has more than its share of preposterous incidents, when it does work (and it does a few times), it hits emotional highs that The Illusionist can’t even touch. Regardless of his ego or pretensions, M.Night had a vision. The Illusionist is safe and cozy and conservative in its arthouse trappings, but it has zero vision, zero real emotion, and one “twist” that is so obvious in its arrival that the “fun” is seeing how it’s revealed (and even then, Giammati’s epiphany is actually a lazy cheat).

And I haven’t even started on how ones suspension of disbelief is violated in the last series of Norton’s performances. I love magic, but when we’re expected to believe obvious CGI-work is supposed to be something that people in the 19th century are perceiving in a three-dimensional space, I refuse to buy it when so much of the story is dependant on such “illusions”.

I am very much looking forward to The Prestige, not only because it has a more intriguing cast, but because Nolan is a real director. There’s no question he’ll assert a vision that’s forceful, unique, and highly personal. For all its impeccable detailing, The Illusionist is highly impersonal. I for one am very glad that more “real movies” will be arriving in our cinemas in the next few months, but I certainly hope that they aren’t as tediously conventional as this one was.

22

I finally saw this. I’m definitely going back to see it again and when it comes out on DVD, it’s going in the collection.

Excellent movie, excellent acting and very good magic tricks. And there was just the right amount of mystery and ambiguity: Eisenheim was always announced as having “sold his soul to the devil for powers”, etc. and at the end when he was producing “ghosts”, there was always the last little niggling voice in the back of the head that asked whether he actually had and he was going to conjure up a face-eating critter from the netherhells and sic it on the bad guy.

And I was fooled very nicely by the twist ending. I didn’t see it coming and was very pleasantly surprised by it.

23

Enjoyed the movie; made me want to find the short story by Steven Millhauser.

It does seem kind of cheating to use CGI for effects to show stuff that would have been simply impossible with 19th century stage magic technology. (Though the “Orange Tree” was a famous illusion of the great Robert-Houdin.) I saw that Ricky Jay was a magic consultant; there’s not much that guy doesn’t know about the history of conjuring. And Prague sure looks great in the movies.

24

Regarding the Prince and

his suicide. I didn’t think he killed himself over guilt regarding the death of Jessica Biel. He seemed pretty clear that he didn’t do it. It seemed obvious, mostly due to what he was talking about right before he shot himself, that he killed himself because he was in dispair over Austria (that’s where they were, right). Really more that he is now realising that he will never be King or Emperor or whatever. He feels his father is a moron and is fucking shit up and that he is the only solution. His father now knows he’s consipiring against him so will now, under no circumstance let him (prince) be King. That’s why he killed himself. He didn’t give a shit about Jessica Biel - or that she’s dead. He just cared that now he wont’ be king.

I dunno, thats what I think anyway.

I went to see it with a few of my cousins and another friend. We finished watching it and my cousin goes, “this wasn’t the Chris Nolan magician movie, was it.” - Which pretty much says all that needs to be said for me. Of course, i informed him it was The Prestige - which comes out later.

I thought it was okay. It looked pretty, I liked that. Paul Giamatti did a very fine job, I LIked that. That’s about it.

Problems…

I didn’t really buy the relationship between the two of them. I just didn’t think it was developed enough, either that or the two of them have no chemistry, I’m not sure which.

It was really predictable. They really spoonfed everything (paraphrasing)…

“lets run away together!”
“we should probably run away together.”
“why dont’ we run away?”
“will you run away with me?”
“gee whiz, it’d be awesome if we could run away.”

and then after she says she isn’t able to run away b/c Prince will hunt them down forever (which is bullshit, he would’ve come up with another plan eventually). He goes, if you COULD run away would you? Of course she answers yes. Then they make it clear that they are coming up with a plan. Gee whiz, wonder what they are discussing.

Then they show her packing a suitcase and show her putting vials, clothes, and other things into a suitcase. Now either she is addicted to Laudanum or it has a purpuse to be used later.

Plus they make a big deal of showing off the blade of the freaking sword and then there is a gem in the folds of her dress (I really dont’ know how the gem stayed there considering she was hunched over a horse and fell into the water - but I can suspend that, I supose) Wonder where that came from.

There’s more but i can’t be bothered.

I don’t know, I guess when all is said and done I just didn’t feel very respected by the writer, director, or editor.

25

in the spoiler…

It seemed pretty clear that he knew he didn’t do it.

26

Ricky Jay is terrific, isn’t he? You can see him for a split-second in the trailer for The Prestige, so I’m hoping he has some kind of role or spotlighted scene in that movie, involving him with both magician period pieces.

27

Yoiu bet I am! Oh, you mean the actor. Shit.

Anyway, it was a good, but not great, movie. Norton and Giamatti were, of course, excellent, Sewell was perfectly loathsome, and Jessica Biel was much better than I expected (and I have to admit she’s much prettier than I had thought.)

However, the mystery was as predictable as an atomic clock.

28

I can’t think of another movie I’ve seen that’s done so little with so much. It wasn’t a total waste, and anyone who’s interested at all in this particular era (or in period films in general) will probably enjoy it. The film did a good job on keeping the question of wether or not Eisenheim could do real magic open until the end. I didn’t twig to the plot until the inspector found the diagram of the locket, so the ending was completely obvious, at least to me, but I was still a couple steps ahead of the plot. I really liked Giamatti’s reaction to figuring out what really happened, although I’d’ve taken it a step further and had him applauding in the train station.

Unfortunetly, there as lot more wrong than there is right, here. Edward Norton was wasted on a main character that was so badly underwritten that he had virtually no personality at all. Norton made a heroic effort with the character, and manages to make him interesting enough to keep the audience from dozing off. Jessica Biehl’s character was similarly flimsy, but was further hamstrung by not being played by Edward Norton. The relationship between the two of them was probably the least believable I’ve ever seen in a film. And their love scene was even worse. Luckily, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell had roles with some actual meat on them, and they both turned in superb performances. I’d much rather have seen a movie that jettisoned all the stage magic, and focused on these two.

Worst of all, the plot was just dumb. The Prince’s plot against his father was utterly unconving. He’s the crown prince. He’s already guaranteed the throne. It makes no sense at all for him to overthrow his father, his speech about how incompetent his dad is not withstanding. If he’s worried about the fate of his country, and he has brain one in that finely coiffed head of his, he’d realize that the stupidest possible thing for him to do would be to plunge the country into civil war by trying to unseat his father, when he’s going to get the throne no matter what in a few years. It’s pretty clear that this whole subplot was tacked on to make what Eisenheim and Sophie do to the prince acceptable. Because, let’s face it, what happened here is that two people framed a totally innocent man and drove him to suicide so that they could run off to the country and hump like bunnies. If you think about it, that’s pretty monstrous. So they make it “okay” by making the Prince treasonous and mentioning that people say that maybe he killed some other girl before.

Come to think of it, if they’d had the balls to make the prince a truly sympathetic character at the end, it would have saved the whole picture. The twist at the end would have subverted the character development of the entire story. The blankness of the leads would be revealed as a mask for their evil natures. The prince would become a tragic figure, a smart, ambitious, largely blameless man destroyed by malicious slander. The film would actually have been about something, rather than a too-clever “mystery” disguised as an unconvincing romance.

29

I completely agree with that. It would’ve given a different meaning to the film’s title.

30

Preach it, sistah. We go to the show about twice a year. In the fall or after the nominations come out. I’m dying to see this, Hollywoodland, and that other new one with Sean Penn. Can’t think of the name right now.

I hate sci-fi and cartoons. Gimme real movies!

31

All the King’s Men. Ditto and ditto on these two. Plus The Prestige. Plus a bunch of others. Yay real movies!

32

It wasn’t awful, but I was disappointed in The Illusionist. The KaiserSoze-walk that Norton did at the end, which led to the reveal-montage, pretty much ruined it for me: I’d have like it a lot more if it had retained some mystery, rather than decayed at the end–after being mostly very interesting–into another formulaic “twist” pic. Plus–and I know this is my own problem–Sewell’s fake beard just ruined every scene he was in for me. I could not take my eyes off it whenever he was on screen: the spirit gum was too tight, the netting was occasionally visible, the grid pattern of the hairs lined up at certain camera angles. He might as well have had a bug on his nose; it wouldn’t have disctracted me more. Could he really not have grown a real beard for the shoot?

33

Thinking about it some more, the only thing that might redeem it forme me is the fact that the reveal-montage is shown to be entirely subjective; it might just be Uhl’s imagination running amok. That’s a bit more interesting, and probly intentionally ambiguous on Burger’s part; we see the reveal ONLY through Uhl’s mind’s eye, and none of it is confirmed.

34

I knew there was something wrong with the beard. I couldn’t help thinking how much Sewell looked like the main guy from the cover art of In Conquest Born.

I liked the movie very much, but I was also disturbed by the idea that Edward Norton and Jessica Biehl were setting up an INNOCENT man (because why, he slapped her once and there was a rumor he had killed a woman?) I mean sure, fake her death, let people whisper the prince did it - then leave! Don’t stick around and keep summoning the duchess’ spirit until the people riot. Just didn’t get pinning her murder on him when he didn’t do it!

35

You know this movie use quite a few fx shots to tell the story, don’t you?
I liked the movie overall. It was weird to hear Paul Giamatti doing a different voice. I was worried about Jessica but her part was limited and she handled what she did have though she really didn’t have the ‘period’ look.

36

I saw the movie yesterday.

I don’t really have anything to add. I liked it, but it’s definitely lacking in the originality department. It has it’s shortcomings, but still a professional, well-done movie, and I didn’t really see it coming.

Even some of the writing was stuff you’ve heard before.

“Are you going to arrest him?”

Giamatti: “That’s entirely up to him.” :rolleyes:

Good facial hair movie, for the most part. It was no Tombstone and Sewell’s job did look pretty bad at times, but still some good facial hair.

On the adult movie front: I’m looking forward to The Departed on October 6th, and The Black Dahlia coming soon. Scorcese and De Palma. If they don’t get your ass in a movie seat, who does?

37

Oh and–

Was it accurate to show the Duchess riding her horse astride? Would a woman of her class, in that time and place, have been like to ride astride, especially, in a skirt? Wouldn’t she have ridden sidesaddle?

Just curious.

38

She did ride sidesaddle.

39

Nope. Just saw it yesterday. Noticed very specifically.l

40

I did too. You weren’t thrown off by the way her skirts draped?

(She might have been astride in the scene after the fight in the courtyard with the prince, when she appeared to be dead or unconscious – but the presumption was that she’d been thrown up on the horse by someone else.)