User Reviews

The idea is that celebrities will learn and perform magic for the judges, but the do nothing related to magic except presenting it.

Imagine a magician doing a card trick. In this show, the celebrity will be the card, not the magician. They are merely an object being used to present the stage "magic" Chriss Angel always does. For exemple: first episode there a levitation magic. You know it's a damn rope, there's no other explanation. But everyone there still acts like it's magic, like nobody can see the rope remove in editing or hidden with camera filters.

In this show, the actors invited to "perform magic" are just acting and presenting a stage magic. There's no talent in it, no struggle with learning sleight of hand, no actual magician training being taught.

So I was at the taping of the first episode and have just seen the first episode.

The taping took eight hours. It was kinda neat to see in person. However a few things stand out.

First off, the entire thing is manufactured. They had us take like a half hour to get various shots of us clapping, giving a standing ovation, shots of us agreeing with each other, blah, fake as hell. What they don't show you is that by the time the dudes eventually levitated (like 11:30-12:00 at night) half of the audience was gone having walked out at various parts of the night.

Take, for instance, the voting system. The whole thing was made to sway towards Miles Brown for some reason (nothing against him as a person/actor, it's just the show), the best performance we saw, in person at the show, was Corbin's glass and necklace routine. The lowest rated performance. (Which was not portrayed as such in the final edit, keyword:edit) At the end, they gave Criss the red envelope prior to them even knowing there would be a tie, like, right before they shot the scene with the tie. They set it up.

Not to mention, Miles had to reshoot and redo one of his routines. How could it be a fair system if they just redo something, start to finish, that they just did, start to finish.

In the final edit (eight hours of filming condensed to 42 minutes, oof) they cut parts of both performers performances, they added remarks and reactions from later in the night to earlier in the show and vise versa. To create a false storyline of events.

Then the people who were sitting around the tables for the close up parts were provided by the show, stooges, so to say, they weren't in on the tricks themselves per se, but they were directed in how to act. (You can even see in Miles routine that people are doing a specific action with their hands prior to being instructed to do so)

TL;DR: the whole show is manufactured.

As for the show as a whole, it's flat. Criss does nothing but stroke his ego the whole time, advertises his own show, which they've never really done well to begin with.

The tricks were bleh as well, you have a random table, angled down that's thicker in the back than in the front, where do you think the people came from? And later, with what I believe was the same table, where do you think they went to?

Miles had to constantly put his forearms by the dollar bill bags they're holding, you think those bags give him the shakes?

And the levitation, does anything really think there isn't a wire holding him?

He talks about taking magic to the next level and to the "extreme" yet does nothing that hasn't been done a million times by other stage magicians. Lance Burton had a routine where he, himself, vanished into a table and he turned into the very person that chased him there. Criss does generic bits, has fire shoot out, and wears make up, that's all.

Side note: they had a guy locked in a glass box filled with water, that was actually interesting and yet they cut it from the final. That's disappointing too.

Loni Love doesn't really bring anything of value to the show, which isn't her fault, she isn't in the magic community, she was meant as a stand in judge for non-magicians.

Lance Burton was awesome as always.

Eddie Griffin was amazing as well.

The show is God awful, it's in hospice, pull the plug.

I've just watched my first episode of "Criss Angel's Magic with the Stars." It's also my last. Think of this review as a friendly warning.

I just barely know the magician, Criss Angel. He was introduced as the most famous name in magic. Really? "Penn & Teller Fool Us" comes from the Penn & Teller Theater. This show wasn't coming from the Criss Angel Theater. It was from a theater inside a Planet Hollywood restaurant.

The host was Eddie Griffin. Watching him host an 8:00 pm family show was like turning on "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" and discovering that today's guest host is Sam Kinnison. Mr. Griffin's standup is usally a very deep shade of blue.

The object of the show is that Criss Angel's people would teach stars Angel's signature illusions. They perform them before a live audience (at Planet Hollywood) and three celebrity judges, with their backs to the audience, giving them a score between 1 and 5.

Let's break that down - celebrity judges and, like it says in the title, "Magic with the Stars."

Here are the "celebrity" judges. Loni Love (a comedian who I've never heard of), Lance Burton (a magician who I've never heard of) and Criss Angel (a magician who I barely know). Criss Angel's insecurities seemed to be on full display. Whenever there was applause for anyone he'd leap to his feet, forming the letter "Y" with his raised arms, beaming to those assembled as he soaked in their adoration.

When I hear "Stars" I am thinking of instantly recognizable names and faces. The "Stars" were Corbin Bleu (who apparently starred on Broadway in "High School Musical") and Miles Brown (who was the juvenile lead in "blackish"). There's an old show business saying, "If you got to say who you are, you ain't." These so-called "Stars" "ain't."

One of my favorite moments in the show was when Criss Angel corrected Corbin Bleu after he'd done a close-up routine. He told him, "You've got to be more real." This was coming from a man who had his shoulder-length hair moussed back, paint on his nails and a 4 inch diamond crucifix dangling from one ear. He wasn't exactly the poster-boy for keeping it "more real."

If you get a chance - don't watch it.

Criss Angel turns it on big with this show. I can't wait to see what happens next week. Great show for sure! Eddie Griffin, Loni Love, and Lance Burton make the show fun and interesting all the way through. I keep saying to myself...how do they do that? I'm sure that with each show it gets better and bigger as the series developes each week. I've seen the Mindfreak show at Planet Hollywood, but this something better and different. I watched it again on the CW website (for free) and it's better the second time around. I've heard good things about this series and it's all true!

Thank you for being greatest magician of all time!

XO.

So excited about Criss Angel's new show! Great to see him on tv again and it's cool that he is sharing his talent with others in a new way. I don't watch many competition shows but this show has 3 awesome judges and an entertaining host to guide 2 new celebrities each episode through 3 exercises with increasing difficulty. I wasn't sure if I would like this show but I'm glad I gave it a chance! I thought I would miss seeing CA do the illusions but it is a lot of fun watching him help people from different areas in entertainment learn from a pro and see their growth through the process of some friendly competition. Highly recommend!