"The Illusionist" opens quietly, on the image of Edward Norton alone on a stage being watched by a silent audience. He plays a man named Eisenheim, an illusionist -- please, don't call him anything as banal as a magician -- who has become the toast of aristocratic Vienna. Sitting on his bare-bones chair, sweating as he tries to conjure the spirit of yet one more departed soul, Eisenheim is being watched by Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), who when a smoky image finally appears, promptly arrests the showman. "The Illusionist" then backtracks to Eisenheim's beginnings as a poor boy, his tutelage under an itinerant mystic, his friendship with a spirited young duchess and the downfall of their budding romance.

Years later, Eisenheim encounters Duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel) again, incurring the suspicion of her betrothed, Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). As the intrigue builds, "The Illusionist" becomes not just a love story infused with the captivating romance of magic realism, but a subtle, eerie augury of the cataclysm that lies ahead for Austria.

"The Illusionist" is that rarity in the dog days of summer, a movie made for grown-ups, which is what makes it that much more disappointing. Even the pleasures of watching Norton and Giamatti play off each other as two men involved in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse can't overcome a fatal sense of inertness. Rather than taking viewers on a twisty, provocative journey through a mazelike meditation on appearance and reality, "The Illusionist" finally just sits there, looking like a very well-produced pilot for PBS's "Mystery!" series. It's a sophisticated snooze.

-- Ann Hornaday (Aug. 18, 2006)

Contains some sexual scenes and violence.