Seattle International Film Festival - David Jeffers for SIFFblog.com

Rating: 4/10 (12 May 2006)

SIFF 2006, Opening Night
Thursday May 25, 7:00pm The Paramount Theater
Once upon a time a peasant boy and a princess fell in love. The boy was driven away, only to return an accomplished magician, intent on winning back the princess from the evil prince. Neil Burger's The Illusionist is as complex as a child's bedtime story but without an ounce of surprise or originality. Eisenheim (Edward Norton) is appropriately austere, mysterious and the effects used to create his stage fabrications are technically beautiful, but the story reads like a facsimile of been there, done that. Sophie (Jessica Biel) is ravishing and dewy-eyed but has little to do. Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) plays a cartoonish villain and Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) is downright annoying. The concept and design are wonderful but bad Austrian accents, a disappointingly abrupt resolution and a tacked on montage revealing the true story further the disappointment in what might have been a much better film.