Just an Illusion

Rating: 2/10 (25 February 2007)

Though it was better than most movies I've PPV'd lately, it was overly-written, and you could see where it was going a bazillion miles away while driving a truck through the plot holes. If Leopold, Kronprinz von Österreich-Ungarn (that's more High German than is in the film) has immunity from prosecution for any crime as long as the crime is committed on Imperial Property (which sounds more than a bit loopy), then why does he blow his brains out? I would have shot Uhl, then told the police that he had confessed to killing Sophie as part of a plot to overthrow the Imperial Family (or some such nonsense), and that I had just dispensed justice (or some such nonsense).
Why does Junior need Sophie, an Austrian, to win over the Hungarians? If he has killed before, then why the sudden uproar over the "demise" of the stiff-as-a-board Sophie (especially as played by the stiff-as-a-board Biel)? And why does Junior want to overthrow Daddy when he's next in line? Makes sense to me, too!
I was bothered by how Junior's guests openly mocked him. That, kids, is treason, and, in the real world, they would have been dragged out of the palace by their snooty heels, and shot!
The film is as gorgeous as the leads are lame. Norton, Biel, Giamatti and Sewell speak with some quasi-British accent, while the supporting cast sound like refugees from an Aussie stock company. And if Philip Glass rips off his half-ass score from The Hours again, I hope someone makes him disappear!