"Shut Up.. And Let Us Watch The Show !"

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2007)

As I was watching this movie, I was telling myself: "WAW.. Here is a new one for my list of the greatest 100 movies ever!". But as the events went ahead, I found all the rest predictable, weak, and out of my high respected area. As the magnificent potentials of the movie went down to be just another entertaining Hollywood flick, but a bit bizarre and not as solid as its likes!
There are lots of good points to talk about. For most of the time, the movie looked proficiently strong, rarely interesting, and wonderfully made. For instance, I loved the sly performance of (Edward Norton) as (Eisenheim), the majestic music of (Philip Glass), the fantastic deceptive cinematography of (Dick Pope) as an old silent movie with all the exact taste of magic and the adroit tribute for that age, that cinema and that kind of feelings in front of a fancy tale. And above all, the genius performance of (Paul Giamatti) as (Uhl).
Basically the character of (Uhl) is so charming as the sincere inspector who is looking for the truth and bewitched by the magic too. He came from the bourgeoisie; being son of butcher like (Eisenheim) who is son of a carpenter, and deeply malcontent with great desire to fulfill justice. He loved and respected (Eisenheim)'s journey, defiance and adeptness; so no wonder to be the narrator of the story. He wanted to defeat the masters but not by magic, only by the law. I loved (Giamatti) performance, especially at the last scene where he was understanding, as well as enjoying, the whole trick at once in unforgettably astonishing scene.
As for the script, I think, from subjective viewpoint, that this movie has truly marvelous dimensions whereas it can be a story about logical mind vs. creative imagination, powerful authority vs. clever art, or even unjust rich tyrants vs. wronged poor people. It's a bright story indeed where the poor artist can threaten a despotic leader, after awakening and excitation the public opinion against the injustice along with his smart ability, not only to entertain but also to get away with his victory as a public hero who had the superiority over the less intelligent rulers. See, it's thoughtful and amusing. But it wasn't made like this!
The thing is the makers of the movie just abbreviated it to much simpler level, following the principle of "I'm here just to entertain" which's a line said by (Eisenheim) at one point. The problem is that they made their own entertaining movie in a weak way!
I hate to be the sound of mind here, but the magic of this movie contained some faults, and the illusionist's trick / the movie's twist was that obvious (at least for me!), not to mention the badness of its plot. And if you against me, just answer this: if the illusionist kidnapped the body of the alleged dead princess, then the imperial family buried who exactly?!, and if the prince was executed, then it confirms that the immaculate illusionist and his tender sweetheart are the actual killers of the story; whereas they were close to end somebody's life because a crime that he didn't commit or even think of!
They're couple of offensive holes indeed, however I thought that with a little thinking from the movie's writer, they could've been more sturdy and convincing. As for the first hole, (Eisenheim) could put a real corpse instead of the sleepy princess, or make a delusion by so many ruses: the corpse was deformed, drifted by the current, or eaten by the fish.. whatever! And as for the other hole, we could have seen that the prince ruthlessly killed a girl before, or he was intending of killing that princess at one step, or anything but making him such a naive jealous guy who is just intrinsically madly in love!
Actually, the movie's goal was nothing but making a delight romantic fairytale, with the exposed game of black frame around the image all the time; like an old magic lantern's show, as a pure nice deceiving vision. Unfortunately, it wasn't that perfect, with hasty script to disappointing degree. Though, I'll try to tell my mind what the princess told the over-thinking prince: "Shut Up.. And Let's Watch The Show!".
So eventually there is some reality in illusion; as the illusionist creates fancy to the people and confirms the excellence of his class, and some illusion in reality; as the princess is still alive, however nearly nobody knows about it. But even with the movie's own faults, I see that the main message of it will be that the illusion is more enjoyable when we never think about it. And maybe it's the oldest message of Hollywood at all.