Too much talent doing very little effort

Rating: Null/10 (3 September 2006)

The trailers proudly boast this production company also gave us "Sideways" and "Crash." The cast list indicates top notch talent usually doing their finest work in independent productions. But this film disappoints on so many levels. With the lone exception of Rufus Sewell, every other major performance is substandard work (I thought Edward Norten was sleepwalking and Jessica Biel seemed intend on keeping her dialogue a secret). Paul Giamatti made a half hearted attempt to give his character more layered traits than two dimensional cardboard performances of the others and his facial expressions were interesting when not being so forced.
Rufus Sewell did explore new directions in villianry which was lost only once in that silly scene where his Crown Prince character went "undercover" as a commoner. Otherwise he, and he alone, was the only performance worth watching.
The usual suspect when talent this good does performances this bad is an uninspiring script. And yes, Neil Burger's script is mainly the culprit. Right from the opening he uses trite devices of too much dialogue to start the story; committing the same crime of triteness at the end when 35 seconds of flashbacks is all we get for a payoff. Not that there was that much memorable dialogue to begin with. Maybe Jessica Biel, who whispered too much, had it right. You know a script writer is failing you when it is easy to mouth most everyone's next line because it is all so predictable. I did too many times.
And for a real farce, Director Neil's staging of the Obligatory Sex Scene was more comical than anything else. It was unusually original for a bedroom scene but there is a good reason no one else has tried that approach.
"The Illusionist" main redeeming quality is the careful attention to detail to show 18th century Czech Republic and Budapest. It was a delightful 99 minutes of good history and colorful old world charm. I would have appreciated it more if this uninspiring movie was not in the way of the documentary and travelogue.