the prestige/the illusionist
The Only Real Magic Would be if This Movie Made Itself Disappear.
Last year there were two pretty major movies released around the same time about magic, or the dark arts, as we like to call it. The Prestige and The Illusionist. Now, to put it as plainly as possible, if The Prestige is about the dark arts, the The Illusionist is about the dark farts (No no, that’s not a good thing). I can say that definitely now, because after this weekend I’ve seen both of them, and The Illusionist may be the worst movie I saw all year, while The Prestige was by far one of the best.
Of course, this is only my opinion. If you ask the girl I work with about The Prestige, as I did a few weeks ago, she might tell you plainly, “I thought it sucked.” Hmm, concise little whipper snapper that one. So really, maybe I’m totally wrong and I have absolutely horrible taste in movies and The Illusionist is some complex, misunderstood piece of mastery that my tiny brain cannot comprehend, and The Prestige is the poop-mobile upon which I’ve been riding through a web of self-lies. Ya know, like maybe what I see is green isn’t what you see is green. But the only green I see is the green of envy within which I’m shrouded for those who are lucky enough to not have sat through The Illusionist.
I saw The Prestige back in November and I loved it. I thought it was well-done, the plot twist was extremely impressive to me (not to work girl, who “figured it out in like 10 minutes” ugh) and it stuck with me for days. It also had some really cool ACTUAL magic in it. Also, the main character’s name was Alfred aka. Freddie, and come on, how cute is that. The main character’s name in The Illusionist is, ahem, EISENHEIM. You want to know what gets stuck in my head everytime I hear it? That song that goes, “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt! His name is my name too!” Your name is not my name, friend. And it only got worse from there.
The plot was pathetically weak, the acting was the opposite of magical (throw in the towel Ed Norton!) and there weren’t even any magic tricks in it. It was Ed Norton making stuff appear and disappear, but without ever exposing what he was doing in the end. Unless they did explain that part and I just dozed off and didn’t notice. Totally possible. I’d actually like to think that’s what happened, because I don’t want to believe that movie was really that bad. You can’t just have a plot based on someone who makes people appear out of thin air, and hints the whole movie that it’s a trick, and um, I don’t know, is called THE ILLUSIONIST (and just so we’re totally clear, that is defined as something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality) and then doesn’t say ANYTHING at the end about how he was doing it the whole movie. What the hell???
Also, when the “chief inspector,” who spends the movie trying to solve the little mystery, figures out the plot twist (I’m using twist really, really loosely here) there’s absolutely no reason for it whatsoever. He’s just kind of standing there, and he’s all, Eureka, I’ve got it. You have to have a clue spark a realization like that!! I’m not a movie maker, but I at least know that. I’m kind of in shock over how bad this movie was. Jessica Biel owes me 10 bucks. Yeah, I know I didn’t see it in the theater. That’s what my pain is worth. But on that note, I totally recommend The Prestige. Of course, that is unless you are too cool and have any sort of taste in movies at all.
Originally published at Shamblesville.net and copied here with vague, non-committal verbal permission for the sake of the “illusion” of frequent updates and reader participation as well as in the interest of providing this site’s diminutive readership with additional entries containing actual entertainment value.