The Illusionist Reviews
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Dark, dazzling turns by Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel makes it achingly romantic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
ComingSoon.net
If nothing else, The Illusionist is worth watching solely for Giamatti's Oscar-caliber performance.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
Movie Metropolis
A wonderful period film first and secondarily an interesting mystery-romance that keeps you guessing about the big questions until late in the narrative.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
Boston Phoenix
Norton and Paul Giamatti perform wonders, but writer/director Neil Burger ruins the magic, exposing all of his story's tricks by the end.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Baltimore City Paper
Unabashedly old-fashioned and fantastically pulpy.
Cinefantastique
Director Neil Burger effectively evokes a sense of mystery and magic, but the plot grinds too methodically to match the dazzle of the title character's on-stage illusions.
Cinema Crazed
An immaculate and utterly gorgeous murder mystery with the trifecta of wonderful direction, great acting, and a plot that twists and turns at every such occasion.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Top CriticThe line between truth and illusion is blurred so persuasively that for a moment or two, you may even believe that a romantic costume drama could stand up to all those special-effects blockbusters in the dog days of summer.
Film4
Never quite the sum of its parts, this would-be intelligent thriller coasts by on strong supporting performances from Giamatti, Sewell and Biel.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
thelondonpaper
Just as two Truman Capote biopics came in subsequent Oscar seasons, so two period films about stage magicians appear with only winter to separate them. And, frankly, The Illusionist has missed a trick.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
UGO
Despite its two strong lead performances and terrific visual verve, The Illusionist ends up as a great example of an overly ambitious movie that's not quite sure what it wants to be.
Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
An early flashback scene indicates how The Illusionist might have played like The Princess Bride for the tea and scone set. Instead it's just a nobly acted stage mystery.
Times [UK]
Norton looks tortured and old before his time as the humourless Eisenheim.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Observer [UK]
The acts are beautifully mounted, the four central performances are excellent, and the exquisite photography is by Dick Pope, Mike Leigh's regular cameraman.
ViewLondon
Norton is superb as Eisenheim although his clipped Viennese accent grates occasionally and makes him sound like John Malkovich on a bad day.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Guardian [UK]
In its unassuming way, the film shows that reality is more mystifying than illusion.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Film Journal International
It's the terrific cast and nicely paced, weird tale that make this one worth the detour.
With exquisite performances (Giamatti's, in particular), it leaves you thrillingly hovering, happily uncommitted to any one interpretation.
