Apologies for the above summary since it was too good to miss out on an awful pun . If I were to give an honest one word summary for MAGIC it would be " Bizarre "
This a very bizarre film . I am somewhat puzzled by the IMDb classing it in the horror/thriller bracket because it's not really , it's more of a black comedy centered around stand up magician Corky whose life is taken over more and more by a ventriliquist dummy called Fats
There are some good aspects to William Goldman's script . The pacing is nice , the dialogue is good while we're also treated to a very witty scene as Corky relates his first night on stage as the action flashes back to a very uninterested audience . However there's no way I could take seriously the central idea of some guy doing card tricks getting any type of crowd adulation or being on the brink of stardom because he introduced a dummy into his act . " Hey you gotta love this guy " - No we don't ,, how can you love someone who sticks his hand up a puppet's bottom for a living ? It's bad enough the entertainment business has to suffer David Copperfield and David Blaine . Can you imagine what they'd be like with Rod Hull's Emu on their arm ?
Like the script the directing is rather uneven in execution . Richard Attenborough manages to get good performances out of his cast , Anthony Hopkins accent might flit back and forth but he manages to give some indication he's well on the way to becoming one of Britain's greatest living character actors but the inequality of Attenborough's directing of MAGIC can be best summed up with the scene in the boat house with Corky and his agent who tells Corky not to use Fats for 5 minutes . The agent opens the door to leave and the tension is defused when we see that the river and trees outside are a very obvious painted backdrop
Still despite all this it's better than CHILD'S PLAY
This a very bizarre film . I am somewhat puzzled by the IMDb classing it in the horror/thriller bracket because it's not really , it's more of a black comedy centered around stand up magician Corky whose life is taken over more and more by a ventriliquist dummy called Fats
There are some good aspects to William Goldman's script . The pacing is nice , the dialogue is good while we're also treated to a very witty scene as Corky relates his first night on stage as the action flashes back to a very uninterested audience . However there's no way I could take seriously the central idea of some guy doing card tricks getting any type of crowd adulation or being on the brink of stardom because he introduced a dummy into his act . " Hey you gotta love this guy " - No we don't ,, how can you love someone who sticks his hand up a puppet's bottom for a living ? It's bad enough the entertainment business has to suffer David Copperfield and David Blaine . Can you imagine what they'd be like with Rod Hull's Emu on their arm ?
Like the script the directing is rather uneven in execution . Richard Attenborough manages to get good performances out of his cast , Anthony Hopkins accent might flit back and forth but he manages to give some indication he's well on the way to becoming one of Britain's greatest living character actors but the inequality of Attenborough's directing of MAGIC can be best summed up with the scene in the boat house with Corky and his agent who tells Corky not to use Fats for 5 minutes . The agent opens the door to leave and the tension is defused when we see that the river and trees outside are a very obvious painted backdrop
Still despite all this it's better than CHILD'S PLAY