i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Magic is probably a curate's egg of a movie at best as viewing experience but it's an interesting piece of work. Great filmic idea but with a dull and middling script and directed too loosely for a semi horror suspenser. There is nowhere near enough suspense which the subject demanded and although the pay off scenes are unnervingly creepy and very good you may have drifted off before they come, which will be a shame.However the upside is if you're still with it for the final scenes then the lead character will make you squirm with horror film satisfaction as it turns out he may have spent a little too long with his dummy as his only companion. With a better script and tighter direction by a suspense or light horror specialist and not the big scale, big subject specialist that Attenborough was then Magic could easily have been a minor classic like Halloween or The Howling of the same era instead of the forgotten curio it's become. There are even hints of what the film should have been in the major classic The Shining made a year later which handles the same theme of isolation leading to unhinged happenings much better and drenches us in suspense. I like to think Kubrik took this from the less showy Magic and maybe Nicholson realised his mistake in turning down such a role and dived into his part in The Shining. As said above though it was a box office success thanks to a memorable trailer and a strange story and I urge a viewing if you haven't yet seen it.

Go back to "The Twilight Zone" and we have the plot of the ventriloquist's dummy becoming the alter ego of the ventriloquist. In this one, Anthony Hopkins plays a magician who is on the skids until he introduces Fats, a dummy, who somehow connects with audiences. Fats is overbearing at times but really takes on Hopkin's subconscious desires. Of course, it soon becomes obvious that Fats is directing Hopkin's actions (meaning that Hopkin's subconscious is at the surface directing him). It becomes obvious that this "dummy" is going to be the destruction of the magician. He goes away to try to pry himself from Fats's influence. Of course, he can't see what is happening. He tries to connect with a lost love, but it isn't working. Soon things take an even more dangerous turn. This is a good but creepy film.

Magic is directed by Richard Attenborough, has a screenplay by William Goldman based on his novel and stars Anthony Hopkins, Burgess Meredith and Ann-Margaret.Anthony Hopkins gives one of the greatest performances of his career as the troubled ventriloquist who descends deeper and deeper into madness. Hopkins actually learnt ventriloquism for this role and is very good at it.Corky(Anthony Hopkins)is a struggling magician who hits the big time when he creates an act with a dummy called Fats. The act makes Corky a star but soon Fats is taking over Corky's life and he loses his grip on reality. It's a chilling film and that dummy sure is freaky.Burgess Meredith is superb as Corky's agent Ben Greene. Meredith is especially brilliant in a scene where he walks in on Corky having an argument with Fats as if he were real. He asks Corky to go five minutes without speaking as Fats, it's a tense and painful scene to watch. You can see how concerned Greene is for Corky's mental health and also how freaked out he is by the things Fats says. Hopkins excels in that scene as it becomes more and more obvious that he most likely will not be able to last the five minutes.Ann- Margaret is very good as Peggy the love of Corky's life. Fans of the TV series MASH will be delighted to see David Ogden Stiers appear as a man from a TV network who Greene asks to watch Corky's act.Magic is a great horror film from Richard Attenborough. Hopkins makes Corky a very pitiable character who becomes trapped in the nightmare that is his own mind.

I found this film on youtube before it was taken down for copyright reasons. It features Anthony Hopkins, who also starred in the horror film Audrey Rose. This movie is not only creepy but also very sad. Corky grew up as an awkward kid in a small town. When he grows up he wants to be in show business, and takes care of his dying mentor, a former magician named Merlin Jr. During Corky's first performance he bombed, and incorporated a dummy look-alike of himself into his act, becoming hugely successful. He is almost hired by NBC to have his own TV show, but his Agent Ben Greene tells him he'll need a medical exam and he panics because of his secret mental disorders, running away to his childhood home only to find it empty and for sale, implying that his mother and brother are dead or forgot about him. He decides to rent out a secluded lakeside cabin in a dreary part of the Catskills town, owned by his high school crush, Peg. Her husband is on a business trip and she has changed from a popular high school cheerleader to a frumpy housewife. Corky still loves her and they begin a relationship, but Fats (the dummy) becomes jealous since it has its own personality provided by Corky and has become Corky's alter-ego. Soon Corky is discovered by Ben Greene and is threatened to be sent to an asylum. He kills Greene and dumps the body in the middle of the lake. Peg's husband Duke gets home and becomes jealous of Corky, and after finding Greene's body washed up on the shore is stabbed by Fats, who is operated by Corky. Soon Corky has to decide on whom to stick with for life, Peg or Fats. The film is exceptional, it doesn't rely on special effects and gore to be freaky. Anthony Hopkins did the voice of both Corky and Fats and was very good in both roles. The ending was pretty sad; when Fats wants Corky to stab Peg, Corky stabs himself instead to protect the girl he loves. The soundtrack was really good, who knew an accordion could be so eerie? My favorite quote was probably at the end when Corky says, "there was never me Fats, only us," and Fats says, "Shmuko... us was you. It was you the whole time." The line was somehow very effective. Fats was like the exact opposite of Corky; whereas Corky is polite and shy, Fats is outgoing, crude and has a never-ending bunch of swear words and sex jokes to say. The acting of the character Ben Greene was pretty good, and so was Peg's role. The scenery of the Catskills cabin property was beautiful; the big green trees and dark clouds and rain, there was never any sun at that place so it made the atmosphere eerie and pretty and mysterious. Anyone who is scared of dolls, dummies, etc. would find Fats very disturbing. There is a deeper part of Corky's past never revealed in the film, in the book he was always overlooked by his dad because of his Jock older brother and his mom was depressed most days. Peg was a cheerleader who was good friends with Corky in high school but had no idea he loved her because she was dating Duke. All in all the film is great to watch, it has a few comedic scenes but is meant to be serious. Not so much spooky as it is disturbing and sad.