Frood recently received a phonecall from the BT Broadband people — them wot are responsible for providing the blinky thing over by the wall that allows this computer to contact the outside world. BT won’t ever talk to me, only to Frood, even though the payment comes out of an account that is in my name. I’ve never understood that. I know that he’s the account holder, but I bloody pay for it.

Anyway, the phone call was to offer us free BT Vision, as we pay a not insignificant quantity each month for unlimited broadband, therefore entitling us to a free box and a month of free watch what you like. BT Vision, if you can’t be arsed clicking on the link, is basically the same as TiVo or Sky Plus, only it’s advertised by that blonde laddie who used to play the layabout son in My Family.

Magic box for free. Yes, we’ll have one of those thank you please. Even though it’s silver and doesn’t match the sleek, black and sexy look of the rest of our entertainment equipment.

After a week of Frood becoming ever more impatient, to the point where even the giant radioactive ants wouldn’t help and his only solace was continual wittering about huge hats, said box arrived on Saturday morning (getting me out of bed, I hasten to add). For once I let the man of the house deal with setting up the new gadgetry, even though it was going to take him three times as long as it would have taken me. Have to let him feel useful sometimes.

It’s not a bad piece of kit, although the channels are limited. I have been able to catch an episode of Venture Brothers, and to be honest it’s not a patch on Sealab 2021, despite Samson’s best efforts. We recorded My Neighbour Totoro at the touch of a button, meaning I could go out for a nice long run (my feet now hate me). Magic box indeed.

All of which AA Gill style meandering brings me to the film we watched last night.

We had considered picking up The Illusionist on a couple of previous occasions, as Edward Norton is usually pretty good and it looked interesting. There was a slim chance that it might be better than The Prestige, for which I harbour faint sentiment if only because it had David Bowie playing Tesla and doing a pretty damn fine job of it; and it’s umpteen times better than the book, which was melodramatic, implausible, poorly written and tedious.

Brief synopsis, and I’m not including spoiler warnings for the reasons I shall go into below.

During the time of the Crown Prince Leopold of Austria, young cabinet maker’s son discovers magic and illusion, as certain boys are wont to do. He becomes obsessed by it and one day impresses the young duchess. They fall in love, plan to run away together and are cruelly separated by the aristocracy refusing to see past class boundaries.

Young lad embarks on travelling the world, and fifteen years later he is the world’s greatest illusionist (AKA Edward Norton) — so great some even say he even has supernatural powers! He comes to perform in Vienna and meets the duchess again (now played by Jessica Biel with a suitably dodgy accent), only to find that she is engaged to the Crown Prince. Crown Prince is an intellectual, fancies himself something of a genius, and likes beating his girlfriends into the bargain; occasionally to death.

Duchess and illusionist recognise each other and realise they still want to be together. However, Crown Prince needs to wed the duchess to secure Hungary, and as long as he knows she is alive he will hunt them down.

OK. So. Can you see where this is going, boys and girls?

My major issue with this film was how GODSDAMNED OBVIOUS it was. I can’t decide whether the people responsible thought that they were being really clever and we would all be “Oooooh, gasp, gosh, really?!” at the end even though it’s quite clear what’s going to happen almost from the first kiss, given the name of the film; whether they wanted us to feel smug and superior about having worked it out despite the Chief of Police and all the other major players apparently being completely lost; or whether everyone in the world but me got to enjoy the “subtle twist” at the end.

Still. It was made much less painful by only having spent £3 to download it through the magic box. So that’s a bonus.

Other than that, it was a generally good-looking period piece and Norton did a fine job, as usual. Jessica Biel did her best, bless her, but she should stick to wearing skimpy outfits and mixing Ipod playlists in Marvel films. Even if she can’t shoot a bow for shit. I couldn’t help but feel there was something rather too action heroine about the girl that made the character of Duchess Sophie unbelievable.

There was a brief, last ditch glimpse of the Prince’s motivations right at the very end, but it was far too late to bring any depth to what had been a Dick Dastardly level of two-dimensional characterisation, and I was past caring. The film as a whole was a tragic transporter accident between Derren Brown and Penelope Pitstop, set in a period of European history that provided good — but not too lavish — costume opportunity.

My advice? Wait until it comes on standard telly.