Coming late into the summer blockbuster season and before the fall/winter award push, August and September often mark one of the great cinematic wasteland theatrical release months in the U.S. It's a time for checking out retrospectives and boosting your Netflix queue while keeping one eye open for the occasional indie/foreign gem screening at the art house. Beware of posers. Not every art house venture is what it appears from trailers or critical buzz.

Take the The Illusionist. Its trailer suggests high production values, and it stars excellent actors like Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti in a turn of the 19th century period drama about a Vienna magician, who strives to win the royal class woman of his dreams. Masquerading as adult drama, The Illusionist really is little more than a fairy tale—a shallow melodramatic rendering of a simple love story that has a commoner falling in love with the princess and spending his entire life working on a magic spell to win her hand and live happily ever after.

As a children's story, the movie has its charms. Norton and Giamatti dutifully fulfill their stereotypical roles as lower class magician/lover Eisenheim and Chief Inspector Uhl respectfully. The ensemble cast also hit their marks accordingly. Prague once again stars wonderfully as turn of the century Vienna, and Phillip Glass invokes a haunting score throughout. Most importantly, screenwriter/director Neil Burger competently unfolds the narrative to its expected plot twist; thankfully, he didn't turn the project over to insufferable director M. Night Shyamalan. (If you think hinting at a plot twist reveals too much, Burger should have invented another title for the film)

The biggest challenge for this film rests with the marketing and presentation. The trite fairy tale would play best for children, but it's dressed for adults with elaborate pretentious visuals and has been awarded a PG-13 rating for sexuality and violence. Had it been animated, they could have easily achieved a more proper PG rating for a more suitable audience.

Beginning with a brief prologue showing Eisenheim being arrested during a surreal stage performance, Uhl soon serves an explanatory flashback to show Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) how the magician had fallen in love with Princess Sophie during their adolescent years and had traveled the world after they were forbidden to see each other. Some fifteen years pass, and Eisenheim has become the world's preeminent magician. An amateur enthusiast himself, Uhl wants to find out the secrets of his illusions--a “butterfly” trick particularly intrigues.

The Crown Prince attends a show with his fiancée Duchess Sophie von Teschen (Jessica Biel), who fortuitously ventures forward when Eisenheim requests a volunteer who isn't afraid of death. Inevitably, the plot thickens at this point and the forces of good are set against evil--with Uhl stuck in the middle. Had this been truly intended as adult drama, Burger could have developed nuances to create more character study. But that simply is never intended. Thus, the story unfolds with great detail--with plentiful illusions to entertain and mystify, but with the emphasis solely on the storyline that pits romantic love against the power of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

That means The Illusionist will work fine for audiences solely interested in plot. They might even be surprised by the inevitable twist if they get totally wound up during the narrative and neglect both the title and similar switcheroos pulled off by Norton in Primal Fear, Fight Club, and The Italian Job. Giamatti's conflicted character begs for additional development, but Burger resists delving deeper; after all, this is only a fairy tale. Don't let the trappings of the production design or high quality acting talent fool you. As long as you remind yourself that this is a children's story, you'll be able to enjoy it much more, but you can find a much more adult take on the same basic plot and theme in The Prestige.