"The Illusionist" - a review

A nineteenth century world of creaky wooden floors, flickering lantern lights, rough cobblestone streets, and misty, dusk-dampened forests should provide the perfect backdrop for a story of magic and mystery. As a work of cinematography, the new film from the producers of "Crash" entitled "The Illusionist" certainly captures the spooky poetry of a society teetering on the line between the magical and the scientific. Unfortunately most of the other disciplines behind this lushly photographed movie fall far short of transporting.

The film, directed by "Interview With The Assassin" writer/director Neil Burger, recounts the early life and rise to prominence of a powerful illusionist named Eisenheim (Edward Norton), who may or may not actually have truly awesome powers. After an early teenage romance with an aristocratic young girl named Sophie (Jessica Beil) ends abruptly, Eisenheim travels the world, eventually arriving in Vienna and rising to fame for his amazing feats of magic. This brings him to the attention of police inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), a born-poor man with illusions of grandeur serving the crown prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), a pompous serpent who expects total loyalty. Leopold attends one of Eisenheim's performances with his wife, who happens to be Eisenheim's long lost love, Sophie. You can see where this is going.

The direction by Burger hovers around adequate, with some framed tracking shots specifically repeated without any hint of reason. While several of the sequences highlighting Eisenheim's magic act achieve a sort of breathlessness, the overuse of CGI in these sequences calls attention to their phoniness. Someday it might be possible to have a CGI sequence that doesn't require the camera spinning around the effect in order to show off its 3D quality, but as "The Illusionist" shows, that time has not yet arrived. In other technical qualities, the film maintains a level consistent with the stunning, tableau-esque cinematography, although one sequence reveals a stone bridge with an obviously painted-on fascade that proves to be a distracting, unfortunate choice.

As for the performances, Giamatti, as the disillusioned police inspector, gives the film its only truly memorable character. Uhl, a man disappointed with life and fascinated by magic, is an easily identifiable person. Giamatti's eyes speak wonders as he watches Eisenheim. The rest of the cast peforms the material adequately, with perhaps the biggest disappointment coming from Norton. Norton has the ability to channel tremendous energy in his work, as we have seen in such films as "American History X" and "The Fight Club." Here, Norton reduces his natural forces to glowering stares, coasting primarily on his effortless charisma. While that certainly adds mystery to Eisenheim, it fails to elicit much else in audiences.

The true failing of the film is in the story and screenplay. "The Illusionist" is based loosely on a short story of the same name by Steven Milhouser. As translated for the screen by Burger, the film becomes a long string of cliches, wrapping around a central mystery that will surprise nobody except M. Night Shyamalan. One line spoken by Eisenheim to Sophie after their reunion caused my audience to groan audibly and shift uncomfortably in their seats. Additionally, the magic performed by Eisenheim is truly fantastic and completely impossible unless he is actually a supernatural person - yet the film never addresses this power or the illusion used to create it. The central question of whether Eisenheim's tricks were real or invented is left unanswered, leaving the audience unsatisfied. The ending, obvious from the halfway point in the film, hinges upon contrivances shown a million times in better movies, except with even more implausiblities.

"The Illusionist" has the right idea: a movie about magic set in a world of firelight and shadows. However, when making a movie intended to transport audiences with feats of magic, it is always wise to not show the strings behind the illusion.