not a bad movie, really....

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2007)

to be honest, i only picked up this DVD at my local public library because i found out jessica biel was in it. if it was not for her, i probably would not have given the film a second look. i always felt that biel was one of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now and always looked forward to more work from her.
with that said, i was pleasantly surprised that this film was not all that bad (or at least as bad as i have heard other people say) and my friend grew quite fond of the film as well. the beginning was quite slow in the introduction when we meet the younger versions of edward norton's and jessica biel's characters but eventually picks up as they get older. the plot is i interesting enough to keep you watching and i felt that the acting was pretty good.
being that i picked up this film just for jessica biel, i was quite upset because of her early death in the film, but with this film being called "the illusionist," you don't really believe anything you see in this film at first which makes the plot somewhat confused. the ending may be a twist if you think if it that way. at the end, the inspector "finds" out what really happened to jessica biel's character, but the way the final scene is portrayed you don't really know if this is the truth or if this is the way the inspector himself is portraying it. as the audience, you never really find out the truth and it is really left to the imagination. therefore, i decided to watch the final scene with the director's audio commentary on and he gave information you probably already know, but he gave a pretty interesting description of the movie, which i will paraphrase here because i forgot the actual quote. he stated that the whole film is about the audience's perception of things so therefore the outcome of the film is different to everyone that watches it which makes the plot so much more interesting....this is definitely a film with a very involved and deep plot and it definitely deserves a second viewing in order to understand everything...