In the Illusionist, Edward Norton stars as the great magician, Eisenheim in the turn of the 20th century, Vienna.  Eisenheim is a man of few words and we learn it’s because he misses his childhood love, Sophie (Jessica Biehl).  The crafty magician is invited by the snarling alcoholic, Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) to perform at his party.  While he’s performing tricks, Eisenheim finds out that Sophie will be married to the prince.  But not for love, but to gain more political power!!  So Eisenheim does what everybody would do in his situation, try to get the girl back by using magic.  The rest of the movie has inspector Uhl, hired by the Prince, (Paul Giamatti) trying to figure out if Eisenheim really has supernatural powers or if he’s just a genius.

The movie did plenty of things right.  The cinematography imitated early 1900 photographs and it’s captured beautifully, especially the exterior shots of Vienna.  The acting was good but Giamatti stole the show as the loyal but honest detective.  He added depth to a character that could have easily been one dimensional.

While the story was intriguing, director Neil Burger made a mistake by using CG to show the magic tricks. I felt cheated with the outcome of the movie, it didn’t make sense how the tricks were suppose to be real yet I saw a CG orange tree.  The movie is worth watching if you overlook this one glaring mistake.  The production value is great and Norton is believable as a romantic magician.

Video – Part of the appeal of the movie is the desaturated cinematography and I’m glad 20th Century Fox really took care of this transfer. I never thought a 16 million dollar movie could look so good.  The best scenes to watch were the forests and exterior shots of the castles.  The green pastures really popped and silhouette shots of the town were deep black.  The interior shots were impressive, especially in the theatre where you notice the designs in the balcony.  There were several grains on some of the night shots but that’s just me nitpicking.  Overall, very impressive video.

Video: A

Audio – The lossless track did its job for this romantic drama.  There’s more talking on this movie than there is action so the center channel did most of the work.  Dialogue was clear and subwoofer was put to good use with the couple of gunshots in the movie.  Ambience sound was there but I wished it was utilized more.  I could hear the crickets and winds blowing by on some scenes.  But in other scenes, it was just straight out dialogue.  It could have been more consistent.

Audio: B

Extras – The movie comes in a combo pack, so it has the Blu-Ray and DVD copies.  The Blu-Ray has no extras.

The DVD comes with commentary by Neil Burger where he talks about his decision to use CG.  I still don’t agree with his choice but I respect that he’s open to it.  The commentary is informative and honest.  It also includes 2 behind the scenes featurettes with Jessica Biehl and behind the scenes.

While Fox was kind enough to give consumers a combo pack, it would have been better if the the extras were ported over to the Blu Ray disc.

Extras: C+

Overall – Illusionist will not appeal to everybody because it’s a drama with magic as the backdrop.  Some people might find it slow but I liked the character development.  The Blu-Ray presentation was surprisingly good for a low budget movie.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d recommend renting it first. If you have seen the movie before and liked it, you should get it immediately.

Overall: B

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