Edward Norton’s Nipple, Dangling Mics and Other Magic

Last night, thanks to the fabulous Queen of the Bloggers, we went to a free preview screening of The Illusionist. I had missed the Prestige and had heard “good things” about this film so was quite excited. I came away slightly disappointed.

Unfortunately someone had the projector set for the wrong screen size and for the first 10mins there were guffaws as the actors looked like fat munchkins. Then to add insult to injury the establishing scenes for two main characters contained clear shots of a dangling boom mic. This meant that the film took some time to get its momentum back.

The beginning showed promise (that is the piece after the projector was fixed). It had the feel of The Princess Bride, which is always a good thing. However, the story felt clunky in parts.

Paul Giamatti stood out (again) from a pretty good cast, with a deep baritone and the most constant accent. And Edward Norton is always good value.

I just found the story to be too predictable and then found the direction to be heavy-handed in showing the audience what they had already figured out. However, the inevitable sex scene did reveal something: the audience are treated to ambiguous shots of flesh and Edward Norton’s four foot high blurry nipple, but no story development.

Also the director, Neil Burger (also the writer), wanted it to feel like a turn of the century film with those “iris in” wipes (I think that’s what they’re called), so he put in two of them, one somewhere near the beginning and another somewhere near the end, but not as bookmarks, just, y’know, when he remembered.

The story is very good but was just told in a clumsy fashion and the magic is kinda cool too. I don’t know maybe I was too critical, other people in the cinema seemed to like it.