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100The soundtrack is a small marvel of music hall tunes and dialogue that is mostly garbled, allowing expressions and body language to be interpreted.
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100A handcrafted jewel of a movie, The Illusionist understands the illusions that sustain us in youth and that we have to let slip in the end. It's the rare work of art that cherishes both the magic and the trick.
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100Gorgeous, and full of bittersweet whimsy.
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100This is a remarkable movie: lovely, slow-paced and almost silent, rich with pathos and deft comic gestures.
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100However much it conceals the real-life events that inspired it, it lives and breathes on its own, and as an extension of the mysterious whimsy of Tati.
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100Exquisite images, poignant humor, echoes of cinema history and a sense of having watched genuine magic.
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100A breathtakingly beautiful achievement in every way.
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100A true masterpiece of visual enchantment. One of the most original and unique geniuses in cinema today, Mr. Chomet directed, wrote, illustrated and composed the music for this holiday jewel, an homage to the sweet, sad melancholia of the legendary French comic Jacques Tati.
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91Simple enough for children, deep enough for adults, clever enough for cynics.
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91The result is one beautiful movie-and no less so for making a strong case that beauty is a lie.
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91The many fans of the uniquely droll 2003 animation Oscar nominee "The Triplets of Belleville" will recognize the inventive hand-drawn sensibilities of French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet in his loving and lovely new feature The Illusionist.
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90Chomet's defiantly two-dimensional artwork is warm, inviting, beautiful, establishing immediately a comfort level, at least for audiences of, ahem, a certain age.
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90There is something magical about The Illusionist's world, and that's as it should be.
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89Absolutely mandatory viewing for aspiring animators and filmmakers. (In terms of pacing, scoring, editing, and narrative, it's a film school unto itself.) For the rest of us, however, it's simply magic.
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88The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.
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88Chomet himself has written the gentle waltz theme and other music. The piece glides by, effortlessly.
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80The dialogue is multilingual but largely incidental to the action; the physical comedy is gracefully rendered and often magical.
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80If this lovely tribute sends viewers in search of the real thing, that would be a neat trick indeed.
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80For its 80 minutes, the movie creates the illusion that not just Tati but his form of cerebral slapstick lives.
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80Chomet builds this beguiling symphony of sadness to a poignant finale that does ample justice to the many layers of Tati's tale, both in text and out.
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80For all lovers of old style animation it should build up the same cultish following as "Triplets."
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75Like Tati himself, The Illusionist feels like a relic of a different time.
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Feb 4, 201175It's enough to make you laugh if you didn't feel like crying.
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75Though something less than a masterpiece, The Illusionist is a rare animated film of fleeting charms rather than loud noises, aimed more at wistful adults than thrill-hungry kids.
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70I wish I found The Illusionist as pleasing to sit through (twice) as to write about. I'm glad there's a "new" "Tati" film to add to his small, important body of work, yet I wish that the creator of "The Triplets of Belleville" had made a true Chomet film instead. I'll be waiting for that, with a hope to be found nowhere in this handsome, airless movie.
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70The Illusionist is both a modest homage to its writer and a melancholy look at a lost world.
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63A beautifully uncomplicated story, really -- about the love between daddies and their little girls.
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63He (Chomet) keeps us waiting for a narrative payoff that will equal that visual splendor, and he makes us think that many small inspired touches will add up to something memorable. But when he opens his hand at last, there's nothing in it.
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63The movie's second half, which grows progressively sadder, also starts to feel a bit repetitive.
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60The animation itself is technically gorgeous, a class act all the way. But there's so little to be found in the faces of the characters, or even in the way their limbs move (much of it adopted, cleverly enough, from Tati's own physical style), that it's not clear what we're supposed to feel for them.
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50Since this low-grade comedy doesn't really even attempt to be funny, the purpose of the movie is to establish (or reinforce) a feeling of luxurious old-timey melancholy.
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10This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.