- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
100Deserved 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.
-
100A lush piece of romanticism.
-
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.
-
88The 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.
-
83The 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.
-
Outstanding production values and mysterious subject matter give the film a surprisingly opulent feel for an independent Sundance entry.
-
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.
-
80This entertaining movie is content to be something a bit more modest: a pungent period folk tale that teases you until the very end.
-
80It'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.
-
80By the end, the canniest viewers may not be fooled, but--and you can believe this--they may be mesmerized.
-
80What Burger and his colleagues have done is to entrance us with a richly acted, beautifully produced story.
-
75Edward 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."
-
One of the strengths of The Illusionist: Everyone in it actually appears to be acting in the same era.
-
75A rich and elegant film, full of sly, devious characters with complicated motives.
-
75This handsome, elegant and restrained fable about love, artifice and power in fin de siecle Vienna is lavishly imagined and yet oddly airless.
-
75The Illusionist casts an exquisitely bewitching spell with its dreamy atmosphere and pervasive sense of suspense.
-
75Illusionist 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.
-
75An infectious mix of romance, mystery, and magic.
-
75A visual delight as well as an satisfying period drama.
-
75This flight of fancy stays aloft on the power of its acting and its atmosphere.
-
70So beautiful to look at that it practically feels like a drug.
-
70Sewell 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.
-
70A bizarre story of intrigue, magic and murder in turn-of-the-century Vienna casts a considerable spell in The Illusionist.
-
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.
-
67An overly stately affair that often substitutes production values for imagination.
-
67The 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.
-
67The 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.
-
63Eisenheim'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.
-
63The picture feels like an entertaining short story, competently executed at undue length, and that's its origin.
-
60It'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.
-
58The 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.
-
50The Illusionist is dogged by an inert, stale aura that overcomes everything and everyone in the movie.
-
50For 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.
-
50Rather 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.
-
40While it might have made a good short, as a feature film The Illusionist comes across like a magician whose tricks are transparent.
-
40The 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.
-
40The 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.
prev
next
Page:
- 1
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 83 out of 93
-
Mixed: 7 out of 93
-
Negative: 3 out of 93
-
CraigAS5Looks great, but the pay-off at the end isn't big enough to justify the rest of the film. Leaves you with a "oh... and?" feeling.
-
6