Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Sweet dreams are made of these

I went to a thesis defense today but it was warm in the lecture hall and I slept through the second half of the talk.

Karmic payback was swift, since when we went to see The Illusionist in the evening, there was an old guy in the audience loudly snoring a few rows behind us.

I can't recommend The Illusionist, mainly because the "plot twist" is so obvious it can be seen from space. I'm pretty sure the average eight-year-old could see everything in this movie coming.

Also, the movie opens with the magician being arrested, then flashes back to earlier events preceding the arrest. But when the story finally comes back to the arrest, it is not consistent with the opening scenes (if my memory is correct). I think you have to conclude that either (a) the beginning and ending of the movie are not consistent; or (b) the story jumps around in time even more than is apparent, and some scenes are shown in a deliberately misleading order. Or maybe both.

Finally, the movie seems lazy in just using computer graphics for the magic effects. I would have liked it better if the magic tricks seemed like they might actually be done by a magician in fin de siecle Vienna.

3 Comments:

At 11:16 AM, September 05, 2006, Blogger Ashbloem said...

I have read much the same in regards to this movie.

 
At 6:18 PM, September 05, 2006, Blogger Richard Mason said...

I am always happy when someone leaves a comment on my blog.

 
At 6:20 PM, September 05, 2006, Blogger Richard Mason said...

Well, that's an exaggeration. Occasionally random nobodies leave spammy or nonsensical kinds of comments. But you know what I mean.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home