Tricksy

Rating: 7/10 (20 April 2008)

This is pretty much the same movie as that other conjuring movie which popped out of Hollywood's hat around the same time. It's not the same story, but the same movie, with (1) the same twist ending, which is obvious, once one thinks about it (and is probably the ending to every conjuring story ever written); (2) an atmosphere approximating, but only approximating, that of its subject; (3) some cheating on the first rule of conjuring stories not magical fantasies, that all the tricks must be rationally explainable; and (4) a lot of sepia (from the time before things were colored normally).
However, this movie differs from the other in featuring (1) leading actors who are less fittingly cast and speak in funny accents, which hinder the suspension of disbelief; (2) an even more artificial design, but with it (3) some more striking images; and (4) a clearer, simpler, and therefore more interesting story, but with it (5) an ending that brings in one or two too many irrelevant flashbacks, thereby becoming unclear, and seeming to be a cheat when it isn't (I _think_, having just belatedly worked the whole thing out).
For me the main drawback of both movies (or of any movie of the same type) is that I never could believe the characters were the greatest conjurers ever seen, or (granting for the stories' sake that they were) understand why they would be. I think that may be a literary idea, conveyable in a novel but showing its speciousness in a movie. And in the end, it's the only idea conveyed, so the viewer has gained nothing by granting it for the story's sake: it _is_ the story.
Moreover, I wonder whether it isn't a bit of a fake, this conceit of the miraculous mandarin-magician. I realize it's not being offered as a historical fact but a happy idea--but is it one that a true lover of magic shows (I like them but I don't love them) would respond to? Or would he find it empty and meaningless? ...Just wondering.