Let's start by saying that The Illusionist is a movie that I did not like very much, but the reason is a little different than the regular reason; this movie does not suck. The story, even though admittably somewhat silly, is interesting and full of soap opera-style drama. And I mean that in a good way, you won't see an internet poker addicted former janitor or a retarded fat chick fucking her cousin here, just stylish costume drama so to speak. Though I was somewhat annoyed by the fact that we never actually found out how Eisenheim did some of his tricks, which in my opinion created a relatively large plot hole since the film actually built part of itself around the mystery of how he did one of his illusions. I can appreciate some mindfucking every once in a while, but here we never even got a slightest clue as to how he did his trick, which basically ruins all the fun of theorising since it's impossible to come up with any proof to support any theory. Also there's a twist ending, which I personally hate most of the time. They can work, but here the twist is just incredibly predictable and made in such a boring manner that I can't see how some people can enjoy it.
Norton does great here, although nowhere near as good as he did in American History X. He's more like on a Fight Club-level here, playing it low key. Unfortunately that doesn't work too well sometimes, and makes Eisenheim come off like a cocky asshole on a few occasions. That funny man you've seen in every other movie nowadays, Paul Giamatti does a good job here. I don't really understand why he has to shout all the time as inspector Uhl, but I suppose he just had some tension to let out. Biel is Biel, not a good actor and never will be, but she's pretty, and hence she does her job well here. The role of the Governor's wife really doesn't require top notch acting skills, especially since she doesn't even appear in about a third of the entire movie. The score of The Illusionist works surprisingly well, never making itself truly heard but yet keeping the happenings on screen become something more than just happenings on the screen.
There truly are no great, big flaws in The Illusionist. Only some small ones. But the plot holes are incredibly annoying, and a few perforrmances don't work too well due to the weird way the actors charecterise their roles. I'd still recommend watching this if you can ignore such flaws.
