Just saw this movie. This movie came out at the same time The Prestige, and since both were magician movies, I had opted to watch The Prestige with Christian Bale instead. But I’ve heard good things about The Illusionist so I finally decided to see what type of magic movie it was. I would have to say, the movie was somewhat easy to predict, though there were still some that I didn’t get.
Official Site
IMDb: 7.7/10 (31,377 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 75% / Average Rating: 7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 7.5/10
Spoilers: (Show)
The story starts off with the arrest of Edward Norton, however, it soon enters a long flashback which is basically the rest of the movie. Edward Norton was the son of a wood worker, and his life changed after he met a magician. Following that, he met the love of his life, but she was an aristocrat or upper class and even though she liked young Edward too, her family has pried her away.
Edward leaves and doesn’t return until 15 years later where he changes his name and has his own magic show. Everyone was awed by his tricks and everyone loved him. However, he found out that his love was now the crowned prince’s fiancé. Soon after reuniting, they were planning to runaway together.
However, the chief inspector was ordered to keep an eye on her and notified the crowned prince of what was going on. What this ultimately led to was the girl’s death and Edward’s unbearable pain which appeared to have changed him completely.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
However, the moment that I saw the girl’s corpse, it reminded me of Romeo and Juliet and how she would just magically wake up later, which apparently was the case. In the beginning, the girl had begged Edward to make them disappear, but Edward wasn’t able to, and I figured the rest of the movie would involved Edward coming up with a elaborate plan to make her disappear. I did forget about that old man and I found it funny that there was this doctor that appeared out of nowhere.
The only thing I didn’t figure out was that the crowned prince didn’t actually hurt her and it was somewhat cruel in my opinion that Edward Norton had forced the chief inspector into finding a criminal when there was no crime committed. I didn’t figure out why Edward couldn’t have just left and disappear after the girl escaped. He was in super distressed and no one would mind that he would suddenly disappear.
Oh well. I guess he just wanted to punish the crowned prince.
