The Illusionist

I won’t say much about the plot, because it’s better without spoilers, but…I hated the first hour of the movie. Just couldn’t stand it. The two leads were just acting so stupid and self-destructive that I couldn’t sympathize with anyone except the police inspector, and even that was probably in part because he was effectively narrating the story.

If it had been a two-part TV miniseries, I wouldn’t have bothered with part two.

But I stuck through with it, and the tone changed significantly in the second half…and then the ending was so good that it completely made up for everything that had bothered me about the beginning.