I’ve always loved movies about magic so I was looking forward to reviewing The Illusionist which I missed in the theaters. I remember this movie came out around the same time as The Prestige
so there were dueling magician movies just like volcano, Wyatt Earp and
asteroid movies, which usually ends with the first movie doing well and
the second one suffering. That didn’t happen this time however, as The Illusionist made over $20 million less worldwide than The Prestige
did even though it came out two months before it with the advantage of
being the first out of the gate. That’s not to say it didn’t perform
well at the box office or that it’s a poor movie as neither one of those
statements are true. It made a healthy $87 million worldwide and it’s
an excellent movie. Let me tell you why…
The Film 
The movie begins with Chief Inspector
Uhl
(Paul Giamatti) informing Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell)
information about an illusionist named Eisenheim (Ed Norton) who despite
being warned by the Chief Inspector, keeps making the dead appear on
stage. Then we flash back to Eisenheim’s childhood where his younger
self (Aaron Johnson) met his soon to be soul mate Sophie, the Duchess
von Teschen (Eleanor Tomlinson) by impressing her with his magic tricks.
Their burgeoning love is complicated by the fact that they come from
different financial classes and it doesn’t take long for them to be
split up to maintain that class structure. Frustrated by society’s
prejudice against his social standing, Eisenheim decides to travel the
world to learn more magic so when he returns to Austria he will have a
higher place in the same society that had scorned him years earlier.
So 15 years pass by before Eisenheim
returns and starts performing to larger and larger crowds until one
night, the Crown Prince Leopold and his soon to be fiancée (an older
Sophie played by Jessica Biel) are in attendance. Eisenheim asks for a
volunteer to assist him that isn’t afraid of death and Leopold callously
forces Sophie to be the volunteer. Of course the two soul mates
recognize each other and begin to surreptitiously meet which raises the
suspicions of the Chief Inspector who Leopold has tasked with keeping an
eye on Sophie in exchange for promises of career advancement down the
road. The problem for the Chief Inspector is that not only does he love
magic and Eisenheim’s show, but he is also sympathetic to the man
himself. Giamatti does an excellent job portraying a man who is forced
to walk a tightrope due to his shifting loyalties. Throughout the
movie, one is never sure what he will do as he is conflicted himself.
Ed Norton was trained in sleight of hand
for this role by Ricky Jay and James Freedman and it shows as he
performs several tricks himself and does a flawless job. He turns in a
warm performance which is a nice change of pace to see from his usual
roles. His character of Eisenheim cares about people and treats
everyone fairly, saving his disdain and subtle mocking of the
upper-class to be revealed during his show. He pushes it too far though
when he makes a fool out of the Crown Prince and his family through one
of his illusions. Leopold forces the show to close early in an attempt
to rid himself of the upstart illusionist. Rufus Sewell has made a
career playing these types of villains and he always does a great job.
Part of me feels bad that these seem to be the only roles he gets but at
the same time, there is a reason for that as he is so good at it.
Jessica Biel is lovely as ever as Sophie and does a nice job with a
role that one wouldn’t think of her for. According to the Director’s
Commentary, Biel showed up for her audition in period clothes to help
sell her performance. It obviously worked, and she does a fine job in
the movie. She’s no damsel in distress as she proves throughout the
movie. This wasn’t the usual stereotypical role so I can see why she
fought for it. Director Neil Burger has created an unusual hybrid movie
that is equal parts romantic, magic, and mystery that works really
well. It’s always hard to mix genres like these, but he pulls it off
with aplomb with a lot of help with from an excellent cast.
Video
Stylistic decisions by the Director
inherently affect the presentation of this 1.78:1 AVC/MPEG-4 AVC/MPEG-4
encoding. In an attempt to conjure (no pun intended) a suitably
appropriate period look, the picture has been desaturated and washed out
with deliberate flickers added to make it feel more like an old time
silent movie. In one love scene for example, it was lit only by
kerosene lamps for an authentic feel although the air had to be cleared
after each take as no one could see anything! Despite the efforts to
make this look period, the video is still pleasing to the eye and nice
details can be seen. This is just one of those stylistic choices that
don’t lend themselves to High Definition but I still think it looks
fine. You can see some film grain and it’s a nice clean and hasn’t had
too much DNR or digital compression used and overall I think it’s a
perfectly acceptable quality if you take into account the choices made
by the Director and the DP.
Audio
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio is
presented well with clean clear dialogue and ambient surround use when
appropriate. Special mention must be made of Phillip Glass’s score for
the movie which is lush and mysterious and quite an addition to the
movie. It is served well by the audio on this Blu-ray and I liked that
the movie didn’t resort to audio gimmicks for this type of movie and
instead just presented a nice clear delivery that suited this kind of
film. This isn’t a bombastic of assault on your ears that alternates
between being deafening and then making you crank up the volume to try
to hear what the actors are saying, but it is effective and totally
appropriate for the movie.
Special Features
Now we come to the disappointing part of
this review. While Disc 1 has the High Definition version of the
movie, Disc 2 has the Standard version and some meager extras. The
really sad part is the fact that the extremely short featurettes
duplicate themselves. The same actor excerpts are used for both of them
so if you see one you’ve pretty much seen both of them. The other
bewildering decision is the fact that if you want to listen to the
Director Commentary, you can only listen to it on the DVD disc as it is
not on the High Definition disc at all. For what it’s worth here are
the extras:
Feature Audio Commentary by Writer/Director Neil Burger (DVD only)
The Making of the Illusionist Featurette
Jessica Biel on the Illusionist Featurette
Final Thoughts
While this is a great movie and I
believe this release has the best picture quality it will get as well as
excellent audio, I can’t whole-heartedly recommend this as the extras
leave a lot to be desired. I hope that eventually a Director’s Cut
Edition may be released with a lot more comprehensive extras and the
commentary track on the HD disc. Because of the lacking nature of the
special features I have downgraded my total to three out of five stars.
It would have been great to see a featurette that showed Norton
learning sleight of hand to prepare for the role. There has to be more
available behind the scenes video that they should have added than was
included here. If you don’t care about the special features then I can
heartily recommend this Blu-ray to you as the movie and cast are
excellent and it was directed and scored with a lot of finesse and
assuredness.
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