It has the Abra and Kadabra, just lacking the Alakazam.

Rating: 9/10 (3 March 2007)

Many people might regard The Illusionist as a few months too late, well people in Britain anyway. You see The Illusionist has many similarities with last years The Prestige, both follow rivalries (albeit in a different sense), both surround magicians, or illusionists, both are period pieces, and both rely on a final real twist that are pretty tricky to guess. I saw The Prestige when it first came out and I absolutely loved it, superb performances, great directing, and of course the twist that absolutely blew me away. Now several months later, The Prestige's distant but all too similar cousin has arrived in all its glory. Now the trouble with this is that is draws out inevitable comparisons between the two movies. And unfortunately in terms of quality and entertainment The Prestige always wins over The Illusionist. However this is not to say that The Illusionist is not a good movie, actually quite the opposite in fact. The Illusionist is a superb movie, its just overshadowed a tiny bit by The Prestige.
Now then the good points of The Illusionist to start the proceedings. Well first and foremost the performances are absolutely brilliant. Edward Norton is a superb actor in my eyes, in fact in nearly everything he has made he has always delivered a great performance. In this movie Norton simply has to be very mysterious, and he pulls that off very well, but he also gives him a more human and subtle side to the character. The moments he spends with Jessica Biel's Sophie are truly brilliant. Jessica Biel delivers her best performance to date, not saying much as her other movies were rubbish, but in all seriousness she delivers a pretty good performance here. Paul Giamatti is on top form as usual, his character remaining the most interesting and human out of them all. He has some great comedy moments here and there and his curiosity for magic makes him all the better. But the big star here has got to be Rufus Sewell's lip curlingly evil Crown Prince. Sewell relishes in playing uptight aristocrats and here he delivers his most fun performance to date.
Another good point is the fact the actual plot and pacing for the movie is very well done. Many critics have complained that the middle section drags the film down a bit, it never bothered me whatsoever to be honest. The middle section worked very well and like the rest of the film is intricate to the finale. The movie also is directed in a very beautiful way, lit in a nice way and it also has a very good score that adds atmosphere and oomph to certain sequences. But my personal favourite thing about this movie are the actual magic shows. The opening show involving an orange tree and butterflies is mesmerising, yet later shows featuring a sword, a painting and something that I can't say as it'll spoil the movie, the shows just get better and better. And just like the audience you will sit and wonder how he actually does it. Which of course leads onto the twist.
Now then, the twist is what sort of made my love for this movie slip slightly. The twist is nowhere near as good as it was in The Prestige. The Prestige did something witty and inventive, and also very unpredictable. The trouble with this movies twist is that it never really amazed me. Its actually quite simple to figure out if you pay attention to the movie very closely. It works and rounds off the movie very nicely, yet it never feels right. I just wanted something else to happen, something more mysterious. Another problem is the fact that the movie chooses not to explain everything. This frustrated me as it explained certain events and other events they simply ignored. Leaving the audience more confused than anything else.
However, these two bad points do not make The Illusionist anything less than a great movie. It might not appeal to everyone, some might find it a bit too slow for their liking. But if you do like this sort of thing I do highly recommend it. Don't go in expecting it to be exactly like The Prestige as it isn't, but don't expect it to be better than The Prestige either as once again it isn't. But it has great performances, great directing and just a great plot.