Show me the Magic!

Rating: 2/10 (5 August 2005)

For a film dealing with wizardry and witchery this film is totally lacking in any kind of magic. Instead the screen is filled busy busy busy with twitching, flying, and whirring CGI gimmicks and whizbangs The whole movie is layered so deep, and cluttered up with special effects that there is precious room for anything else.
The camera never stops moving too. Nearly every shot in this flick the camera is dollying, tilting, or on a crane, or on a steady cam. The only time the camera stops whanging around all over the place is when our hero faints - which he does with monotonous regularity.
For all the effort that went into this film (and technically it is very impressive) I doubt if I will remember a single frame of it in a weeks time. There wasn't a single arresting image, line, or bit of business in the whole 7 hours.
A mechanical, soulless bit of movie making which requires no imaginative input from the viewer.