Lack of good storyline.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

-Houdini (2014) miniseries review: -Houdini is a two-part series following the life and career of Harry Houdini, played by Adrian Brody. Mainly focusing on his rise to fame and career as a major entertainer, Houdini looks at various elements of his life, such as his marriage, family, rivalries, and of course, escape magic tricks.-I honestly wish Houdini would have been a film. If has a total runtime of 2 hours 20 minutes, a great cast, and high production design. But as a series, it was still pretty darn good! -The story was well focused and very compelling. The second half is very different from the first half because of Houdini's change in interests, but that is what actually happened, so….-The pace was fantastic. It never became not interesting to me. I binged-watched it because I could not turn it off.-The acting is very good. Adrian Brody does a very convincing job and the supporting cast did great.-The characters all feel very human and flawed, which is something I am glad they showed because of how inhuman Houdini appeared to everyone at the time. I also really liked seeing his rivalries with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charlie Chaplin.-The music did not fit very well. It had a very modern vibe to it, which aided the pace, but made the overall tone feel too…. hip? Something like that.-The editing was also pretty choppy. It matched the fast cuts in the music, which was played for suspense, but was not needed for it. It is prevalent that he lives through dangerous escapes, but his life was still on the line, so modern music and quick-cuts don't were overkill.-The production design on the film was great. Everything from costumes to makeup was done very well. I also really liked seeing how tricks were done, and some of them are explained afterwards, making you guess first. I am also not going to complain about an anticlimactic ending, because that is how Harry Houdini went, very anticlimactically.-Houdini had some flaws trying to add style and suspense, but despite its best efforts, it was very well done, well-acted, and compelling due to an engaging story and relentless pace. Houdini, being slightly shy of Amazingtastic, is definitely worth checking out! -Houdini is TV-14 for some mild language, intense scenes, some violence, and some brief sexual content, but no nudity.

I actually had quite high hopes for this two part Bio-pic of the great escapologist Harry Houdini. For one thing, being in two parts should give the narrative plenty of room for detail and development. It was also a "History Channel" production which I presumed meant it would focus on factual and not fictional incidents in Houdini's life. I even thought that the casting of Oscar-winner Adrien Brody would confer some gravitas on proceedings. Well, sorry to say I was wrong on every count. I've done a little background research and can't see any evidence of Houdini's secret spy-work across Europe prior to World War I (far less break into the German Embassy's safe for valuable papers, during his own act), ringing the Kremlin bells for Czar Nicholas and his family, far less meeting Rasputin or do the bullet-catch trick in front of Kaiser Wilhelm. Houdini surely had such a fascinating life that there was no need for these fictitious sensational-isms. Even real-life events such as his exposure of the fraudulent medium Margery (with gratuitous seduction scene, natch!) or thevfall-out with the Conan-Doyle's seemed souped-up, to say the least.I also hated the production values with its trendy post-"Sherlock" use of jump-cuts, time-compressions, internal anatomy close-ups and worst of all the booming cacophonous soundtrack employed presumably to accentuate dramatic scenes. Then there's Adrien Brody himself, that's tall, gangling Adrien Brody playing short stocky Harry Houdini. And just what were those far from platonic kisses with his adored mother all about?No, I really hated this, it really did, for me encapsulate all that's bad in Hollywood representations of supposedly factual events. One day, we'll presumably get an accurate retelling of Houdini's fascinating life and times, but this assuredly wasn't it, not by a long chalk.

HOUDINI, The latest biopic from History Channel is engaging, insightful, and filled with commendable acting (how could it not be with Oscar Winner Brody at the helm?) However, the attempt to update a centuries-old story with trendy quick cuts, and CSI/NCIS/SVU-like sound effects is just plain annoying, and may make you want this mini-series' to disappear forever. Adrien Brody turns in a fine performance as the famed magician, playing him as a complicated figure, as charming with audiences as he is jealous, and egotistical behind the curtain. You know... human. Kristen Connolly is great as Bess Houdini, illustrating how frustrating it must have been to always be in the wings, both on stage and around Houdini's ever-present mother. However, I'd have liked to see more of the suffragette struggle since Bess' inequality personified what the 19th Amendment, THE hot topic at the time, was all about in the first place. The many "how'd they do that?" trick reveals were entertaining, if not a buzz kill. And while they may take the pizazz out of magic as we know it, they also serve to show Houdini as a clever man willing to push his body to the limit for entertainment value. Leave it to History Channel for blowing the lid off of myths that have surrounded Houdini's story for years. Previous biopics have played with the facts far too long for dramatic effect. HOUDINI is entertaining enough, and the two night length was just right. Sadly, the production effects and other digital wizardry will date this mini-series long before the Great Houdini's legend escapes our cultural legacy.

...but highly watchable nonetheless. 'Houdini' is nothing we haven't seen before. This is so formulaic that really without much rewriting this film could be about anyone. This script is dead awful in terms of creating a story about the life of a real human being. This is the kind of picture 'Dewey Cox' lampooned so brutally. But really I sort of expected this going into 'Houdini'. Bio pics really are a dime a dozen. None of them are particularly imaginative in framing the stories of their subjects. It's all about the presentation and the lead actor. In these regards 'Houdini' is a very fortunate movie. It's well shot, staged. and is very imaginative. Above anything else though Adrien Brody is the savior of this film. I think had a lesser actor been cast this movie could have been a disaster. This is a performance that transcends the clichés.One of the glaring problems 'Houdini' and most bio pics has is that they want their titular characters to dissect life in a way that no real human ever does. Harry Houdini was a brilliant magician but that was also his job. If 'Houdini' wanted to dissect life through the lens of it's character it would devote more time to showing Houdini developing his performances and exploring his relationship with the audience. I really fail to see why this isn't more simple to comprehend. So the least interesting aspects of the film all have to do with the comical monologues Brody is given as he explains his deepest darkest fears. Frankly, they make Houdini sound pretentious and whiny. Brody does his best with them but they hurt both the pacing of the film and the audience's relationship with the character.Unsurprisingly 'Houdini' works brilliantly when it goes into his magic acts. Brody exhibits a great starry eyed quality into his character. There's a great moment in the film when Harry talks about striving to give his audience the best and how that serves as a constant challenge to one up himself. Everything is recreated in a painstaking manner and Brody actually does a great job setting up these tricks. He is brilliant at making us interested. The second half which delves into his quest to debunk spiritualists is even better than the first half. It really leaves the traps of the script here and we see Houdini as a real character. Frankly, I think this is what I admired most about Houdini. Brody shows Houdini as a man in grief who wants nothing more than to be wrong and to believe in a world of the fantastic despite knowing the secrets behind every magic trick. I think a great film could just be made with this aspect of Houdini's life because it shows Houdini for what he was best at, bending secrets. The fact that he bends secrets because he cares about people though is what makes him identifiable. 'Houdini' is goofy but really in the scope of things it is harmless and Adrien Brody is able to do some good things with the role. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Harry Houdini and wants a somewhat fresh looking take. It's not terrible but serviceable. At the very most Adrien Brody wants to have fun even if it is ridiculous and Harry Houdini is remembered because of his ability to bring fun to the audiences.