The Illusionist

A guest review by Scott M.

The Illusionist (2006)

In the turn-of-the-century Austrian countryside, a young peasant boy named Eisenheim wins the heart of Sophie, a young woman of royal lineage, with his unrefined, yet mesmerizing magical skills. However, he lacks the ability to overcome the social boundary between the two of them, and ultimately her royal family forbids the couple to see each other again. Fifteen years later they reunite when Eisenheim (Ed Norton – Primal Fear, Rounders, The Italian Job) returns to Vienna as a famous magician, Eisenheim the Illusionist. Eisenheim is surprised to find out that Sophie (Jessica Biel – 7th Heaven) is engaged to Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell – Tristan + Isolde), but it is not long before Eisenheim and Sophie rekindle their prior love affair. Despite the warnings of the well-intentioned, yet duty-bound Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti – Sideways, Lady in the Water) to steer clear of Sophie, Eisenheim refuses and subtly utilizes his magical powers to undermine the Crown Prince’s power in an attempt to lure Sophie away from him. The remainder of the movie details the escalation of the tension and competition among Eisenheim and Leopold, pitting Sophie and Chief Inspector Uhl in the middle – with (of course ) some magic tricks mixed in.

Despite some unquestionably interesting magic tricks and another compelling performance by Norton (who happens to be one of my favorite actors), and a strong performance by Giamatti, the movie fails to deliver any real “magic”. The characters and the plot both seemed borrowed from a variety of other movies and sources, and I felt myself saying “this seems familiar” way too often. In fact the movie’s biggest plot line has been overused way too often to be compelling (the “peasant boy falls in love with woman of royalty making those in the royal ranks non-too-happy” theme is less than original – they even used that one in Pirates of the Caribbean). But, it wasn’t until the end of the movie that I recognized the movie’s biggest theft – straight out of one of Shakespeare’s most memorable plays (albeit with a different ending). I left the movie with a ho-hum feeling and kept thinking that maybe the best trick the movie pulled off was making the $8 disappear from my wallet. Overall, I give it a B- (which on my “Golfing Guru” scale amounts to a “three-putt bogey”).