MovieChat Forums > The Illusionist (2006) Discussion > 7.7 - WTF!

7.7 - WTF!

posted 14 years ago by rogermccarthy
56 replies | jump to latest

This is one of the few movies I stopped and deleted from my recorder half-way through and it gets 7.7 points?

Yes it has a great cast (Norton, Giamatti and Sewell) and I am normally a sucker for anything involving frock coats and uniforms - but the story is unbelievably Mills and Boon romance-level lame.

And it is utterly unhistorical - there was no Crown Prince Leopold (and in any case Austrian imperial heirs were never called Crown Prince) and if there had been he would have married into another royal family and not some bimbo-aristocrat.

Plus the Austrian Empire was to all intents and purposes a constitutional monarchy - the police just couldn't make people disappear or plausibly threaten to do so - much less the Crown Prince overthrow his father.

But what really bored me silly was the fake-British accents - yes at least they tried to be consistent and there is nothing worse than a costume drama set in Europe where all or some of the characters speak American (Amadeus or Robin Hood Prince of Thieves frex) but the strain of enunciating every word properly made even such talented actors as Norton and Giamatti seem wooden and detached - while Biel already started out that way...

So who is giving out all these 7s and 8s and 9s and 10s? is there an Ed Norton fan club working overtime?

[–] epprecht 9 years ago

It is 2015, Lord I hope you gave up reviewing movies.

[–] david-rf 9 years ago

This is one of the most overrated movies of the last decade.

VIVA LA VINYL

[–] Zenkai76 8 years ago

Must suck to be an angry little man who can't enjoy anything in life other than what Jarred enjoys.

-People sure do get angry if you don't like the same things they do

[–] Tyypo 8 years ago

The lack of historicity did not bother me, as it was clearly a fictional endeavor. However, I concur it was a lame, overrated movie, for reasons I put forth in my review. Short version: the "illusions" were impossible, destroying the plausibility of the movie, and the ending (for me anyway) was so obvious and telegraphed that I had really hoped it was going to be something else. Of course she was alive.