| rev:text
| - Such a weird show.
I remember seeing David Copperfield TV specials when I was a kid. He had this weird, 1980s faux-sexy Hasselhoff thing going on back then. The shtick hasn't aged well, though he has. (And the dork once bagged Claudia Schiffer, so props for that.)
I was surprised how bored he seemed throughout the performance. If YOU don't look excited that you made a car appear on stage, I'm not sure how WE'RE supposed to get excited.
Copperfield veers between three modes: bored, corny and unconvincing.
There are times where he's trying to land an emotional punch, but they fall flat. He shows old home movies of his dead "father," then Copperfield "steps inside" the movie to have a fake tear roll down his face and give the old man a hug. Then he "appears" in the center of the audience. What? You just turned down the lights and played a video and ran over to another spot in the crowd. That's an illusion?
Another huge drawback to the show is that MUCH of it is reliant on audience participation. The night we attended, the crowd was packed with foreign or mentally disabled people. I'm looking at you, Canadian woman who didn't understand the concept of putting her hand shoulder-high. I sat there wanting to scream at a lot of the participants, "THE NUMBER 78 IS BEYOND THE 1-TO-50 RANGE HE ASKED FOR, DUMBASS."
His show also featured an animatronic alien that I'm pretty sure has the same facial structure as Chucky, the doll from Child's Play. It's supposed to be cute, but it's creepy. It also doesn't help that the alien is voiced by someone doing a gruff fake-New York accent. The alien is kind of a dick. I didn't want it to get back to its family. I wanted it to be buried alive inside the giant hourglass standing pointlessly at stage left. That hourglass also helped illustrate that the annoying talking alien bit ate up a good 30 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.
Nearly every single trick was a variation on A) Making something appear or B) Predicting something.
If that's your jam, you may like this show.
But allow me to suggest an alternative: Go see Penn & Teller at the Rio. Their show is legitimately funny. They still perform with energy. They have a good variety of simple, but mind-boggling illusions. AND after the show, they'll pose for pictures with you for no extra charge. You may even learn how an illusion was performed. I still think about that show and smile. And THAT'S real magic.
* If you MUST see David Copperfield, either get a discount on tickets from the concierge with your MLife membership or hit the discount ticket booth on the strip.
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