Yeah, they mugged a lot of people into paying good money to see this. The scenery was great, but the plot, screenplay, scenes, direction, editing, continuity was rubbish. I get the impression that Michael Caine was wondering "what the hell am I doing here", Anthony Quinn seemed to be trying with a boring role, Candice Bergen looked nice but her acting was not up to much. I know Michael Caine did many roles, just to be kept in employment, which is a sensible attitude, but not good for movie goers, particularly in this case. The plot was just annoying and seemed to have missed certain items, Michael Caine's character discovered the Villa, and straight-away there was something amiss, and after meeting Quinn assumed "there was a game to be played" without much indication of such, maybe he was telepathic, but it was confusing, daft and preposterous, all in one go. I was bored out of my mind watching it. The book might have been good, but it did not work as a film, the screenplay needed to be more dynamic, the direction needed to be tighter, and more suspenseful. I gave this 3 stars for the scenery, and the actors, but mainly the scenery.
Review of The Magus
