It has tons of flair and glitz and glamour with big special effects, but none of it manages to hide the magician walking down the stairs for his disappearing act.
It's so easy to see through this stuff, none of it is even remotely realistic. You'd have to be completely ignorant of basic things like rain and such to fall for any of the magic tricks they used to move the plot along.
Just a unimportant example: there's a trick with falling water and a strobe light that makes it look like a drop of water is hanging in mid-air. You can buy this in a novelty store, it's nothing difficult. Later on in the movie they use this trick, in public, over a large area... and the strobe lights magically make the water actually not fall down.
Also, to hypnotize anyone in this universe, all you have to do is grab them suddenly from behind and whisper in their ear, "LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE BLAH BLAH DO WHAT I SAY."
This world runs on cartoon logic, but tries to be serious. It doesn't work. At all. The plot is just as lame as the magic tricks themselves.
Film Like a bad magic trick
It has tons of flair and glitz and glamour with big special effects, but none of it manages to hide the magician walking down the stairs for his disappearing act.
It's so easy to see through this stuff, none of it is even remotely realistic. You'd have to be completely ignorant of basic things like rain and such to fall for any of the magic tricks they used to move the plot along.
Just a unimportant example: there's a trick with falling water and a strobe light that makes it look like a drop of water is hanging in mid-air. You can buy this in a novelty store, it's nothing difficult. Later on in the movie they use this trick, in public, over a large area... and the strobe lights magically make the water actually not fall down.
Also, to hypnotize anyone in this universe, all you have to do is grab them suddenly from behind and whisper in their ear, "LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE BLAH BLAH DO WHAT I SAY."
This world runs on cartoon logic, but tries to be serious. It doesn't work. At all. The plot is just as lame as the magic tricks themselves.