Metacritic reviews

Magic is one of the top-notch films of the 1970s. And if you haven’t heard of it by now, you should never forget the name at this point. It isn’t one of those psychological thrillers out to tie knots in your stomach right off. Like any good magic trick, the excitement comes with the waiting.

In adapting his own best-seller, William Goldman has opted for an atmospheric thriller, a mood director Richard Attenborough fleshes out to its fullest.

There's a certain quirky charm to the young Hopkins in his creep-out role as Corky, a shy, failed stand-up magician. [25 Apr 2006, p.3]

Aside from the obligatory shots of the dummy looking sinister, director Attenborough fails to evoke an effectively eerie mood, concentrating instead on the "drama" between Hopkins and Ann-Margaret.

Hopkins is quite good as the timid ventriloquist-magician, but the film suffers with the addition of an awkward subplot involving an unhappily married woman (Ann-Margret). [25 Apr 2006, p.E2]

From the start, Hopkins forgoes the subtle route and heads straight over the top, squeezing what fun there is out of William Goldman’s humorless script.

A hammed-up version of the old chestnut about the ventriloquist who is 'taken over' by his dummy, clumsily adapted by William Goldman from his own novel and infinitely better done in The Great Gabbo and Dead of Night.

A no-frills, no-imagination reworking of the story about the ventriloquist who is taken over by his dummy.

It's intended to be a thriller, but there's little suspense and almost no fun in this account of a schizophrenic ventriloquist.

In short, Magic is unworthy of its name. It's frightfully feeble and obvious. [11 Nov 1978, p.F11]