One time I loudly mentioned to someone that I’d see any film, no matter how stupid, as long as it was in 3-D (this was before Battlefield Earth was released).  Well, somebody must have heard me and then gone out and made Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box, the latest film made for IMAX in their wonderful 3-D format.  All jokes about their sexual preferences aside (as S & R say, “In magic, anything is possible”), I’ve always been more that a little bit uncomfortable with two German guys that insist on surrounding themselves with the whitest animals on the face of the planet.

So I checked my preconceived notions at the door and prepared to be dazzled by an onslaught of incredible images from the bonus film dimension.  And IMAX doesn’t disappoint here; Box is a lot of fun to watch, as long as you don’t pay much attention to the actual content of the film, which tells the life story of S & R.

Siegfried Fischbacher grew up in Rosenheim, Germany, and became obsessed with magic at an early age.  After dazzling his father with a trick, Siegfried rode his bike to a Munich magic shop, where he apparently learned the tools of his trade.  Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn hails from Nordenham, Germany, and was as crazy about animals as Siegfried was about magic.  He had a half-wolf/half-dog that saved his life, and eventually befriended a Bremen Zoo cheetah named Chico.

Much is made of S & R’s difficulties growing up in war-torn Germany, but I couldn’t help but think that they were better off there than in Poland or Austria during World War II.  The paths of the two future Vegas performers finally crossed aboard a luxury liner, where Siegfried performed his magic and Roy was a waiter.

The two eventually took their show on the road, receiving little pay and less glory.  They even had to eat burnt potatoes because Chico’s lean, raw meat diet was siphoning all of their cash.  It’s hard to feel sorry for them when they wear ridiculous outfits, live in fabulously gaudy homes and seem more concerned with their tans and their hair than they do anything else.  Hey, they can buy you and sell you a million times over – don’t feel sorry for them.  Besides, why did they have to eat burnt potatoes?  That just means one of them was a really bad cook.

On the plus side, director Brett Leonard (IMAX’s T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous) does a great job connecting scenes together with incredible 3-D images, a lot of which reminded me of the Dutch film Character for some reason.  He doesn’t have much to work with in terms of a story, but Leonard adds enough of his own touch to keep the film interesting.  Sir Anthony Hopkins (Mission: Impossible 2) provides decent narration, as well.

0:50 –