Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box

OHHHHH! This movie is outrageously awful. And yet, it is also bound to have you laughing for the whole film. No, film implies that it has merit. This is not a film. This movie has no merit at all.

The plot holes and inconsistencies are hysterical. The New York Times review mentions the line describing either Siegfried's or Roy's childhood in "Pre-post World War II Germany." Sure enough, it's there. Whatever that means, I'd love to know it. My German friends can't figure it out either.

Poor Teenage Siegfried sees a book about magic in the store window but he doesn't have enough money to buy it. Lucky for him, the exact amount of money needed floats by in a puddle. I'm inclined to think that he broke the store window and stole the book, but....

Then, Teenage Roy is caught in quicksand...outside of Bremen in Germany. German quicksand!!! That's right, only in this movie. Fortunately, the big shaggy dog saves his life and solidifies his bond with the animals.

One day, 20-year-old Roy is playing with a Cheetah at the zoo. The next day, he's smuggled the Cheetah aboard an oceanliner where Roy is working as a steward. How did the Cheetah get out of the zoo? The movie doesn't go there, but we know the truth...

It's hilarious to see the look of disgust that Siegfried has for the tigers while Roy is riding on their backs.

Poor Anthony Hopkins. Fortunately, he's made enough good movies (Silence of the Lambs, Titus (A MUST SEE!), etc.) to not be remembered for his role as the narrator in this lame waste of money (both mine and the producers').

There is so much more to say, but I forgot most of the movie because I was laughing too much. I'll close with this, however. The only possible explanation I could think of for the overall awfulness of this movie, is that the Tiger wrote the script.

I've never been to Las Vegas, I've never seen S&R show, and all my knowledge about them comes from Father of the Pride series. Still, this movie was definitely worth watching and very enjoyable.

By today's standards, the movie lacks in graphics and in scientific approach. I would have so much preferred to watch it without all these ridiculous and silly "effects" which may have been impressive a decade ago, but now look cheap. Special effects should help viewers immerse in the movie, not exist by themselves. But this knowledge comes with time and a decade ago these effects were the way to go, so I'm not to blame the authors. Another problem is that today everyone knows that there's no such thing as a "white lion breed", so what S&R did isn't environment preservation in any way.

But... the way S&R treat their animals and interact with them warms my heart. I don't advocate using animals in circuses, but I know for sure S&R love them and never treat them badly (just google for "Make sure no harm comes to Montecore").

The way S&R portray their childhood memories, children's perception of the world is interesting and fun to watch. This is as documentary as Simba's singing I Just Can't Wait To Be King in The Lion King is. But still, it's fun.

The music, the narration are top notch too.

The sad thing about the film is that there's a very high quality IMAX filmstrip lying somewhere, but we won't get to see it...

Siegfried and Roy's first autobiographical sketch on film comes with state of the art graphic effects and a touching story about the lives of two of the most greatest performers alive. In their story they challenge the obstacles that came from postwar Germany and the strenuous tasks of making it in show business. Furthermore the film adds a touch of beauty to the meaning of fufillment of lives goals but gives a new understanding to the word success, for not only is it acheived by believing in onself it is the outcome of years of preserverance.

My wife and I are big fans of S&R. We used to see there show one a year during our really holiday which we (almost) always spend in the US. So when I discovered this DVD both of us felt the urge :We must have this!" since we have about everything one can get from them.

That said. It was nice to see and I wouldn't have wanted to miss it but all in all it was a disappointment. There are no 3D effects, worse I distinctly have the feeling that they simply copied a VHS tape to DVD! It looks just as grainy as all my own VHS -> DVD movies.

So those that have really enjoyed S&R I would advise them to certainly buy it (cost me less than 5 dollar!) but don'g get your hopes set too high.

You know a movie which starts by a ten minutes long presentation of the theatre's sound system is not gonna rely too much on your central nervous system for understanding. IMAX movies belong to this kind. I knew it, yet nothing could have prepared me for the experience in deep stupidity that is the viewing of this film.

The story is told as if the audience had an IQ of 4. It is empty and vain. I wont even speak about it, it fills me with dismay.

The purpose of IMAX is to have spectacular shots. The excerpts from Sieg&Roy performances are really great and a pleasure to see, although the very nature of performance magic loses its interest on film.

However, these beautiful shots add up to a very little part, maybe 10%, of the movie time. The rest is storytelling so rotten it gives the creeps, and computer generated "stuff" that is at the same time technically awful and aesthetically extremely ugly and pointless. On the technical side, you can see the pixels in the image and the pixels in the (ugly) textures ; and on the aesthetic side, it's JUST PLAIN UGLINESS that you can witness in glorious 3-D and surround sound. I'll say it another time. IT'S A-F***IN UGLY !

One could say that, well, they intended to have that "cardboard" look for whatever artistic reason. But no. The word "artistic" cannot be associated with this film.

A troubling thing is also this repressed homosexuality which oozes fron the two "heroes" ; by the end it is pretty obvious that they probably do more than just magic together, and we dont see a single woman in the entire movie except their mothers and some dancers. And they show them living happily together with all their white tigers in their mutimillion ranch. Well well. I would have built a shrine to this director for having put out the first french kiss between two guys on IMAX close-up. But he didnt do it. He chose hypocrisy instead.

By the way, the director also directed "The Lawnmover Man", which seems fitting, in the end.