Hold on Magnolia to that great highway moon…

Paul Giamatti has been one of my favourite actors since I saw Tim Burtons failed but interesting remake of the Planet of the Apes where he played the human slave trader. After some very good performances in movies like American Splendor, Cinderella Man and the excellent Sideways, Giamatti truly is one of Hollywoods greatest character actors along with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In The Illusionist Giamatti plays the Vienna Chief Inspector Uhl, a man who has made it against the odds in a royal empire where connections is everything.

Edward Norton might be the big star and what the PR people wants you to believe the movie is about, but it really is about Inspector Uhls and the choices he makes concerning the Crown Prince, Leopold, and Eisenheim, the Illusionist.

The film starts of on a few different levels, and the main reason that Uhl is the main character is that he is the one that binds all these characters together, ands also can decide their faith in a way, thus being the central characther in the movie.

I'm not going to write so much more about the plot because one thing that made me think what I did about it was that I hardly knew anything about it beforehand and this only helped in building up the excitement. I think this is vital for some movies, where you for other movies, most notably the Aviator, really have to know what and who the film is about.

Of course you can make comparisons with The Prestige which also is about magicians and murders, you could even say that The Illusionist have got their own Scarlett in the movie in Jessica Biel who have some similarities in her appearance to Scarlett. Scarlett may be one of the most stunning women ever, but in all honesty she ain't much of an actor. Jessica Biel is a really good actor however and she's very believable in the role as the duchess Sophie.

However, where you can compare Finding Nemo and A Shark Tale and say that A Shark Tale steals a lot from Nemo, I'd rather compare The Illusionist & The Prestige to Deep Impact and Armageddon as one of the movies are big budget super blockbuster and the other has a great ensemble, however not as starfilled as the other. More importantly though, Deep Impact are more toned down than Armageddon and also a much better movie.

I haven't seen The Prestige just yet, but it seems to be more like Armageddon in that comparison, even though Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and Scarlet Johansson is by far better a better ensemble than Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton and Liv Tyler..

The Illusionist is not the first film I've seen on my new HDTV, but it truly is the first film I've seen on it where the difference really has been mind blowing, and it was just a simple dvd rip and not in HD format. The film is just beautifully shot and it's got a 1800's photograph feel over it with blackened edges most of the times. Overall the movie is pretty dark, something that I find really annoying on regular tv's as the black in most cases is some kind of grey instead of black. But on an HDTV, the black really is black and it makes the whole look amazing when you mix in some carefully selected colours into it.

All in all The Illusionist is a really good thriller, a bit down toned and sometimes a bit too slow, but almost all the times very exciting.

My rating: 4.0 stars