Illusionist, The

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

A lush piece of romanticism.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Deserved an end-of-the-year prestige release, is a true work of art in a marketplace filled with velvet paintings. It's positively magical, the reason we loved movies in the first place.

Village Voice Bill Gallo

Beautifully acted and handsomely mounted, this gorgeous period piece is an intelligent and intriguing exploration of "the dark arts" -- less dependent on mere hocus-pocus than on the convincing journey of the soul undertaken by its hero.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The less said about the twists and turns The Illusionist takes, the better. Suffice to say, Eisenheim's masterful deceptions do not stop when he exits the stage.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The Illusionist looks rigorously styled and measured, and every one of Norton's postures feels chosen. Yet the interesting actor has chosen so thoughtfully that we're riveted.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

Outstanding production values and mysterious subject matter give the film a surprisingly opulent feel for an independent Sundance entry.

Time Richard Corliss

By the end, the canniest viewers may not be fooled, but--and you can believe this--they may be mesmerized.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

This entertaining movie is content to be something a bit more modest: a pungent period folk tale that teases you until the very end.

Slate Dana Stevens

It's an exquisitely crafted period picture that keeps promising more and more as it goes along--smarter ideas, richer themes, spookier plot twists--and keeps delivering on every promise, right up until the rug-pulling and overly hasty final sequence.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The ending dispels a lot of the magic, but the silent-movie palette is gorgeous, and the film is worth seeing for the inspired hamming of Paul Giamatti as Vienna’s chief inspector, whose plummy tones made me sure I could hear the ghost of James Mason cackling.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

What Burger and his colleagues have done is to entrance us with a richly acted, beautifully produced story.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This handsome, elegant and restrained fable about love, artifice and power in fin de siecle Vienna is lavishly imagined and yet oddly airless.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A rich and elegant film, full of sly, devious characters with complicated motives.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This flight of fancy stays aloft on the power of its acting and its atmosphere.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Illusionist is like an overupholstered wing chair in the corner of a men's club -- you settle in only to be startled by how ridiculously comfy you are.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The Illusionist casts an exquisitely bewitching spell with its dreamy atmosphere and pervasive sense of suspense.

Premiere Jared Shimizu

A visual delight as well as an satisfying period drama.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

One of the strengths of The Illusionist: Everyone in it actually appears to be acting in the same era.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Edward Norton is at his best here, chalking up another boundary-stretching performance this year in the wake of the unfairly overlooked "Down in the Valley."

ReelViews James Berardinelli

An infectious mix of romance, mystery, and magic.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A bizarre story of intrigue, magic and murder in turn-of-the-century Vienna casts a considerable spell in The Illusionist.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

It's important to keep in mind that little in The Illusionist is quite what it seems. That goes for the movie itself, fashioned from smoke, mirrors and, fortunately, Mr. Norton's magical performance.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Sewell and Giamatti ham it up as the imperious pretender to the throne and his ambitious but conflicted minion in this uncheesy but entertainingly tricky mystery. There's more heat between the two of them than between the sappy lovers.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

So beautiful to look at that it practically feels like a drug.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie also is designed to be an actor's showcase for Norton and Giamatti, two of the best movie actors of their generation. Each has his moments of fire, but some element is missing from the script that would make this duel of the titans riveting.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

An overly stately affair that often substitutes production values for imagination.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The results are reasonably clever and impeccably executed, but one of these days, Burger is going to have to pull more from his hat than just the rabbit.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Eisenheim's storybook romance with aristocrat Sophie (Jessica Biel), the childhood sweetheart now expected to become Leopold's princess, is the most compelling thing about a film that should dazzle the eye as much as stir the heart. It does not dazzle.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The picture feels like an entertaining short story, competently executed at undue length, and that's its origin.

Empire Olly Richards

It's not on a gasp-inducing making-the-Statue-Of-Liberty-disappear level, but with its opulent presentation and confident storytelling, The Illusionist has the power to keep an audience rapt like a good old-fashioned card trick.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The Illusionist might trick some moviegoers into thinking it's clever, deft, old-fashioned fun. But I urge those folks to stay home with a real classic romantic thriller on DVD or cable to remember the difference. This film doesn't even manage to breathe old life into the forms it apes.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Illusionist is dogged by an inert, stale aura that overcomes everything and everyone in the movie.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

For a film meant to float on a gossamer veil of mystery, The Illusionist falls -- make that flops -- with quite the heavy thud. It's an intended piece of magic that plays like a ponderous slab of melodrama, sleight of hand gone ham-handed.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Rather than taking viewers on a twisty, provocative journey through a mazelike meditation on appearance and reality, The Illusionist finally just sits there, looking like a very well-produced pilot for PBS's "Mystery!" series. It's a sophisticated snooze.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The movie is leaden and self-serious, with an unusually hollow performance from Norton, who's not for a moment convincing as a man of raging passion. Far better is Paul Giamatti.

Film Threat Jeremy Mathews

While it might have made a good short, as a feature film The Illusionist comes across like a magician whose tricks are transparent.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The film's moody, dark palette and soft, inchoate backgrounds tend to lull the senses rather than actively engage the viewer. The magic practiced by this illusionist does not extend to the screen.