IMDb user comments for
The Magic Flute (2006)

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20 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Good-humoured, fresh and inventive screen-staging, 15 enero 2007
Author: Framescourer de London, UK

Branagh starts as he means to go on - a daring, 'one-shot' sequence for the opera's overture, as an abstracted version of early 20th century conflict in cartoonish primary colours. It's at once humorous and disturbing, and (with it's digital gloss) indicates his intentions for the rest of the film.

The film uses opera singers miming to their own studio recording. This works well, freeing up the performers to really throw themselves into the drama. Joseph Kaiser is a striking and sympathetic leading man: Amy Carson, a gorgeous, bright-eyed, charming Pamina. Their mutual attraction is very natural and convincing. René Pape's Sarastro is a youthful Solomon, though necessarily restraining himself from the lustfulness that intoxicates most of the other characters. Ben Davis' Papageno and Tom Randle's Monostatos are frustrated opposites played off Pamina's chastity. Lyubov Petrova's Queen of the Night and her Three Ladies are quite a kinky gang - thank goodness for the simple charm of the Three Boys.

Around this characterful core there is a marvellous web of computed animated fantasy and flashback. There are also plenty of in-screen effects and inventive shooting. I particularly liked the fiery Queen of the Night filmed, mid-coloratura, with a semi fish-eye lens making her look completely bonkers.

A heavily stylised, entertaining run out of The Magic Flute. It may not be the best way to encounter the opera properly. It's profusion of ideas often works in conflict with the natural progression of the drama as scored by Mozart. There's plenty to enjoy though.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Splendid, 21 octubre 2007

Author: gherrick de United States

The most wonderful movie I've experienced in the past year. I was enthralled by the translation of the German lyrics into vernacular English; the Italians for once did not dub it away, but just provided Italian subtitles: Bravo! I was in awe of Mr. Fry's — I believe — ability to preserve the poetry while translating the language, and making it still fit the music. This opera is my very favorite and I loved the singing. The idea of setting the opera in a 20th century war scene gave the libretto story credibility and passion, something most opera lacks, except as the music imparts. I salute Mr. Branagh's genius. As usual in such musical movies it isn't clear who actually did the signing, but whoever did, did a wonderful job; the passages by The Queen of the Night gave me the usual chills up and down my spine, and Mozart is irrepressible! I have long savored Bergman's Magic Flute, and I do think Branagh's has earned at least an equal berth.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Commendable for what it attempts even if it never engaged me beyond the superficial, 29 mayo 2008
Author: bob the moo de Birmingham, UK

When a soldier is near-fatally wounded in battle, he is recovered by three women and wakes to find himself in a strange land. Here he sees a beautiful woman that he is instantly besotted with. However when he learns that the woman has been kidnapped by the evil Queen of the Night, he sets out with a new companion to rescue her.

OK so this flopped in the cinemas but did anyone expect otherwise? Branagh may have sold Shakespeare to the masses but opera is not as generally accepted as an art form; most of us see Shakespeare as of value (even if we never go to the theatre) but yet things like opera and ballet still have the air of snobbery about them. Despite this though I was interested in this enough to put it on my rental list. Coming to it to see what it offers me helped me I think because I was in the middle of two extremes that I think reject this film. On one hand we have those that reject the film for being opera and hard to follow. On the other hand are those that cannot believe the opera has been "sullied". The truth for me is somewhere in the middle because the film is not as good as it could have been but is not a failure either.

The music is the selling point of course and Mozart is treated well with really well delivered music throughout. To the untrained ear it contains recognisable emotion and beauty and it was this that held me. Juts as well really because the plot is hard to follow – something I found strange from the man who has delivered Shakespeare with such clarity and accessibility. The lyrics may be English but many of them are rendered almost indecipherable by the nature of the singing. This doesn't affect the music but it does affect the story-telling and makes it almost easier to listen to than watch at times. This isn't ever totally true though because Branagh does do the best he can with a limited budget. His sets and effects have a consistently "unreal" quality which feels like a cross between a film and a filmed opera. Sometimes it gets a bit tiresome (too many elevated/elevating shots) but mostly it works.

The cast are all OK: really good in regards giving "stage" performances but on film it doesn't totally work and mostly they add to the feeling of watching a stage performance through a camera. This isn't a fantastic film by any means then, but it is not a deserving flop either. Instead it is an interesting attempt at something different that has strengths in the music and creativity but never really engaged me beyond the superficial trimmings.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Superb - by fans for the fans, 14 febrero 2008

Author: ursa81-1 de Norway

I think it's sad that this movie got such a low IMDb grade. I just wanted to say that this film is not for people who has an abc list of criteria each film has to fulfill to be a "good" film.

I do not watch much TV and film, and it's getting even less as I've started to work in the business myself.

This movie is for people like me, who've seen enough to see they need something different. AND it's for Magic Flute fans. I you don't like things being different or Mozart, you won't like this film either.

But IF you like Mozart and things that are different (call it "original" if you'd like). Then this is a MUST SEE. Branaugh has captured ALL the important details i this movie, and by IMPORTANT I don't mean whether the coloratura can hit the F sharp in a special way. I mean captured the true FEEL of the original play.

The libretto is silly and full of love, so is this movie. I've seen so many different versions of the opera, but only in this film have I seen truly fitting singers in the different roles. Most casts have a dull Tamino -> in this he's brilliant. Pamina is brilliant. Papageno is brilliant.

Mozart would be proud of himself and the performers and Branaugh if he'd watched it. Congratulations!

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolute pleasure, 25 enero 2008

Author: eden-22 de Rotterdam, Holland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It's a sad fact but the libretto of Die Zauberfloete is quite... weak. This film has done the amazing achievement of lifting up the story line and making in it not only beautiful in music and decors, but also interesting to follow and understandable! Chapeau. What a great movie. The Papageno-Papagena sound at the end is a masterpiece and is a perfect capture of the theme behind the scene. It's uplifting and joyful, and the voices are perfectly acceptable to very good. It's at the same pleasure level as La Traviatta of Franco Zefirelli. And I have to say it takes guts to revisit this story with a WW1 theme and achieving such a nice result.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
A complete version of Mozart's opera given full movie treatment., 16 diciembre 2007

Author: jen-parry de United Kingdom

A man behind me commented at the end, 'What a bizarre idea', which I suppose it was, if he was expecting a filmed version of the staged opera. What we get, however, is a proper movie, with all the tricks and all the realism that can offer. The plot is - always was - nonsense, which suits this semi-fantastic treatment perfectly. Branaugh uses his CGI with drama and humour as well as the poignancy of the First World War to hold the story together. The principals were ideal - they looked right as well as sounding perfect. Papageno was a comic delight. Liz Smith - not a singing role - was enjoying herself as much as the audience where I saw the film enjoyed her. The singing would be enough to hold an audience on its own.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Rather ununderstandable but beautiful, 26 enero 2008

Author: Mightyzebra de Scotland

With stunning Mozart music and fabulous acting, "The Magic Flute" makes up to be a very unusual film. The plot is rather hard to understand and there are constantly weird going ons to intrigue and surprise. This film is for anyone who likes opera, otherwise this film is not nearly so enjoyable. Though this is surreal and usually ununderstanable, the music and characters interwoven make up splendidly,

The story is basically what is most likely Mozart's opera, except it is set in the First World War. A young man is saved from death by three angel-like women and finds himself in a place he doesn't recognise, ruled by a mysterious queen called The Queen of the Night. In this new world the young man looks at a photograph of a beautiful woman and instantly falls in love with her. He learns that the woman has been kidnapped and with a birdman, sets out to rescue her.

Recommended to opera lovers and people who like weird films aged nine and upwards! Enjoy "The Magic Flute"! :-)

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26 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
Too many tricks, Mr. Branagh., 20 septiembre 2006

Author: paterfam001 de Canada

Ingmar Bergman had the right idea -- present 'The Magic Flute' as a filmed stage presentation, complete with audience, intermission and a certain amount of behind-the-scenes byplay. Branagh's version suffers from being a straight movie, more-or-less realistically filmed, though with an overabundance of Art Direction and Set Design, and cheap CGI for the magical effects. The stage gives the distance that allows enchantment, the film's realism negates that. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Would it have been better if the budget had been bigger? Possibly, but maybe not. The story is sweet, but, in fact, rather silly - Schickaneder was, after all, not Goethe. In the post-'Lord of the Rings' era we expect our heroes to undergo rather tougher trials in pursuit of the Magic Dingus, and we expect our villains to be more effectual. Dramatic conflict is on the low side of gripping. That said, the movie was generally pretty to look at, the singers were good-looking and svelte, their acting was pretty decent, ***** the MUSIC WAS GLORIOUS *****, and they sang it well. I sat the whole time with a smile on my face, my soul vibrating along with the singers' vocal cords. Somebody, I hope, will tell Kenneth Branagh that the circling-camera trick is corny. And tell Mr. Frye that double (feminine) rhymes, though all right in an inflected language like German, sound goofy in English.

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0 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Nice Flute, Shame About The Magic, 1 diciembre 2007

Author: writers_reign de London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Kenneth Branagh could well have subtitled his second turkey in as many weeks and his third this year The Cranes Are Flying for yes, folks, our Ken has discovered a thing that you can mount the camera on and it will then climb in the air and allow you to shoot the film from the point of view of a cloud and that's his angle of choice for a good 30 per cent of the running time; if this was a ploy to detract from his lack of ideas then it doesn't work and only draws attention to the pretentiousness on display. It's got to be a prime gobbler when Liz Smith pointedly excludes it from her CV and presumably asked for her name to be removed from the credits. Stephen Fry has the chutzpah to take a bow for the lyrics; it's patently obvious that he has never heard of Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Frank Loesser, etc, let alone studied them, in fact if it comes to that he hasn't even bothered to study a Rhyming Dictionary and is clearly a paid-up member of the Kiss My Assonance School Of Lyric Writing. Branagh himself is clearly an advocate of the If It Ain't Broke, Break It, brigade for having set Shakespeare in Japan earlier in the year he now sets Mozart in the First World War but not the one you may have seen in the newsreels where the trenches were furnished with a melange of mud and rats; you could EAT off the floors of these trenches and though he allows an occasional rifle shot for authenticity infantrymen topple over without so much as a scratch let alone any of that nasty blood. This doesn't leave a lot on the positive side; okay, the singers Mime effectively enough, they are, after all, mostly trained opera singers but apart from that there's a two-hour gap where the film should be.

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11 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Another fantasy, 5 enero 2007

Author: meliopoulos

No magic rings? A magic flute? If you liked "The Lord of the Rings" and "Moulin Rouge", you might like "The Magic Flute". The music and the landscapes are beautiful. The singers look strangely like real people, since they are opera singers, not Hollywood actors. There's a war, but not a lot of blood because everybody's singing most of the time. Why not a fantasy without orcs? Why not a story without a lot of video game battles and trials? There are some female characters, more than you usually see in a fantasy. When the Queen of the Night threatens with all her powers, there are some great moments. Although the lyrics are sometimes difficult to hear, the overall feeling is fun and uplifting. Unfortunately, it only lasts two hours.

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