Sometimes movies about esoteric subjects come in twos: Armageddon and Deep Impact, Volcano and Dante’s Peak, Capote and Infamous, all released within months of each other. The 2006 pairing was “tortured magicians about 100 years or so ago,” and I happened to see both in the same week.
The Illusionist
Dreary, slow, and dull. The acting is dismal, the pacing lugubrious, the plot utterly unengaging, and… well, isn’t that enough? Edward Norton just should not do accents – he’s a great actor (not that he displays much of his talent here), but his nasally, slightly effeminate voice takes to accents like a duck takes to the Sahara. Paul Giamatti similarly feels badly out of place in a period piece, and poor Jessica Biel can barely keep her head above even these low-lying waters. She sure tries hard; I just wanted to pat her on the head and coo, “It’s a good effort, sweetie, but just trot on back to Seventh Heaven.” The only spark of life, as so often happens with these leaden, overly serious movies, is the villain, Rufus Sewell gettin’ his evil on and seeing no need to modulate his performance. He doesn’t have much of a choice, with the ridiculously e-e-e-e-evil role written for him.
The Illusionist was supposed to have a big “twist” ending, but there’s nothing surprising about it – if you’re halfway paying attention (and I wouldn’t blame you if you nodded off and missed the CLUES), you’ll be left wondering how anyone could consider the denouement anything but predictable.
For some reason, it made me think of The Usual Suspects – not that either movie is at all like the other, but all the talk about making people disappear made me think of Kevin Spacey doing the “And like that...” – poof – “...he’s gone” line. So as soon as The Illusionist ended, I popped in The Usual Suspects, so the movie night wasn’t a total loss.
The Prestige
The Prestige
certainly benefited from my having seen The Illusionist
first – the comparison is kind (although its ending,
too, was supposed to be a twist but was pretty easy to see coming).
The rivalry between Christian Bale and Hugh
Jackman is a lot more involving and unpredictable than anything in The Illusionist, and Bale in
particular imbues his role with passion and anger. There are some
genuinely surprising twists in the plot -- it might even reward repeat
viewings.
Plus, you know, Scarlett Johansson versus
Jessica Biel? Now that's just kicking Jessica when she's down.
At least The Prestige explains most of its protagonists’ tricks (I have to think the Alliance is going to frown on that). The Illusionist was made even more frustrating by having Edward Norton perform tricks – I mean, illusions – that are just not believable without explanation. The Prestige requires a certain suspension of disbelief that I ultimately wasn’t prepared to make, which left me feeling less positive about it, but it only really comes in at the end of the movie.
The previews for both The
Illusionist and The Prestige made
me think of a book I read about a year ago, Carter
Beats the Devil, which is about a magician who becomes involved in
various
intrigues, has a professional and personal rivalry with another
magician, and
so on. It’s a good read – it would
probably make a good movie, too, in the right hands.
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