Susan Hated Literature

Dir: Neil Burger
Writ: Neil Burger based on short story Eisenheim the Illusionist by Steven Millhauser

• Edward Norton - Eisenheim
• Paul Giamatti - Inspector Uhl
• Jessica Biel - Sophie
• Rufus Sewell - Crown Prince Leopold

In Austria at the turn of the 20th century a young carpenter’s son falls in love with a girl from the local nobility. Obviously her family are not impressed by this and do their best to separate the pair, and after much drama they succeed. The young boy is Eisenheim, aka Eduard Abramovich, and at the very beginning of this film we see him on stage in Vienna. As he begins his act he is promptly arrested by Inspector Uhl. Uhl then heads off to debrief the Crown Prince Leopold, and as he does we get to see all the back story too.

I loved the look of this film. Visually it worked really really well. Such a pity then that the rest of the film fell short. I never got a sense of Eisenheim as a character. Yes, we know that he loves Sophie, who by now is unofficially engaged to the Leopold, but as for the rest of his character? Nothing. Sophie is slightly more understandable. She has grown up knowing that eventually she’ll have to marry for the good of her family, but yet was never able to forget her teenage love. Leopold is another character fairly lacking in development. He’s the badguy. And that is about it. Inspector Uhl is probably the most rounded of the main characters, and he is played superbly by Giamatti.

If I’m going to be brutally honest I was a little bored by this film. Possibly because I had a fair idea of what was going to happen all along. Show Spoilers ▼

IMDb | Stuff as Dreams are Made on | Western Eye | At the movies

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• Josh Lucas …. Lt. Ben Gannon
• Jessica Biel …. Kara Wade
• Jamie Foxx …. Henry Purcell

It’s 2001 with added explosions and minus any thought. If you want to reduce Stealth down to basics of course Personally I kind of enjoyed it. I went in expecting shite, and I came out having seen shite. But enjoyable shite.

The plot revolves around an experimental AI plane that is being introduced sometime in the near future by the US navy. Only things don’t go according to plan, if they did there wouldn’t be any film now would there? Lucas, Biel and Foxx play the three fantastic pilots who fly around the world, much in the style of Team America only without that classy music. They are told about evil terrorists and off they head to blow them up, not a thought in their heads about the fact that they are violating other countries and if someone did the same to the US all hell would break loose. But lets not try to make this film reasonable. Because if you are looking for logic or thought, well you wouldn’t have gone to see a Rob Cohen film then would you?

As you can see instead of the characters, or the poster for Stealth I’ve used the picture of an explosion. Why? Well because that is what this film is all about. Mindless action. Ultra mindless.

Course fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey may be a little annoyed to find that HAL has been transformed into a killer plane called Edi, but what can you do.

IMDb | Maguire’s review | Empire Review

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