A decent pantomime, but it fizzles out.

Rating: 5/10 (25 September 2012)

Two-dimensional characters can be fun in a pantomime or melodrama, such as the infallible wizard Eisenheim (Norton), the adorable-in-spite-of-being-a-duchess Sophie (Biel), and the black-hearted Crown Prince (Sewell). The only character in The Illusionist who undergoes any sort of development is the police inspector, who starts as the evil prince's lickspittle and ends as Eisenheim's greatest admirer. This isn't enough - or it's too much if all you want is pantomime.
If the actual story were stronger, the fact that The Illusionist is only a bare melodrama wouldn't matter; it's beautifully staged, and the actual premise of the cabinet-maker's son and the ultra-posh duchess separated as teenage lovers promises a solid, if corny, ending.
But the script fails to deliver *SPOILER*.
At the end, the way in which Eisenheim has managed to fake Sophie's death is all explained in a multi-flashback in the police inspector's head, because both hero and heroine have left the stage about fifteen minutes previously. This is actually a clunky Deus Ex ending, not the twist which it pretends to be, and it doesn't resolve the story properly. It seems that Eisenheim was an expert chemist, as well as a virtuoso hypnotist, engineer, and all-round decent cove.
Not a bad movie to share with your kids at Christmas maybe, and still better than the ridiculous Prestige because it's unpretentious.