Oh my! This movie (or series) should disappear forever! What a waste of time, a dreadful attempt to portray the great Harry Houdini (Eric Weiss). This is truly a Hollywood abortion, a hideous distortion of the Houdini story, with problems right, left and centre. On the plus side, it is colourful and a good laugh in parts. Adrian Brody was titanically miscast. Every time he was on screen, all I could see was his enormous crooked nose -- that is a major distraction. In fact, Houdini was a rather handsome man, on the short side (NOT tall like Brody), and Houdini had an average-to-small size nose, for goodness' sake! Such a ridiculous film.

-Houdini (2014) miniseries review: -Houdini is a two-part series following the life and career of Harry Houdini, played by Adrian Brody. Mainly focusing on his rise to fame and career as a major entertainer, Houdini looks at various elements of his life, such as his marriage, family, rivalries, and of course, escape magic tricks.-I honestly wish Houdini would have been a film. If has a total runtime of 2 hours 20 minutes, a great cast, and high production design. But as a series, it was still pretty darn good! -The story was well focused and very compelling. The second half is very different from the first half because of Houdini's change in interests, but that is what actually happened, so….-The pace was fantastic. It never became not interesting to me. I binged-watched it because I could not turn it off.-The acting is very good. Adrian Brody does a very convincing job and the supporting cast did great.-The characters all feel very human and flawed, which is something I am glad they showed because of how inhuman Houdini appeared to everyone at the time. I also really liked seeing his rivalries with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charlie Chaplin.-The music did not fit very well. It had a very modern vibe to it, which aided the pace, but made the overall tone feel too…. hip? Something like that.-The editing was also pretty choppy. It matched the fast cuts in the music, which was played for suspense, but was not needed for it. It is prevalent that he lives through dangerous escapes, but his life was still on the line, so modern music and quick-cuts don't were overkill.-The production design on the film was great. Everything from costumes to makeup was done very well. I also really liked seeing how tricks were done, and some of them are explained afterwards, making you guess first. I am also not going to complain about an anticlimactic ending, because that is how Harry Houdini went, very anticlimactically.-Houdini had some flaws trying to add style and suspense, but despite its best efforts, it was very well done, well-acted, and compelling due to an engaging story and relentless pace. Houdini, being slightly shy of Amazingtastic, is definitely worth checking out! -Houdini is TV-14 for some mild language, intense scenes, some violence, and some brief sexual content, but no nudity.

Its a shame that a channel like History would show such fiction. This movie is more based on, or an accumulation of, past movies on the man than they are on his actual life.It is entertainment and in such, writers will change what they want to make it more interesting. As the saying goes "Controversy creates cash." If not, then Hollywood would be broke.As far as facts, they did get his name right. The way he met his wife, also quite true. His relationship with his father, no. His relationship with his mother they really down played, he was very devoted to her. The time lines of his escapes, wrong and the secret agent stuff was the worst fiction of all.For a mini-series, they told less about the man than the 1953 movie with Tony Curtis. While the 1953 movie had it's own mistakes, it was a lot more accurate than this mini-series was. I gave it 2 stars only because the actors did good with what they had.

This movie may not have been exactly historically correct, but I really don't care. I enjoyed finding out how Houdini did his illusions. That was very interesting. Also, while I know the real Houdini was not nearly as good looking as Adrien Brody, I thought Brody did an excellent job. The fact that he is very handsome and somewhat sexy didn't hurt. The show was extremely entertaining and I look forward to a DVD. I would watch it again. It was not touted to be an accurate documentary. The History channel had another show that did that. This was a "movie" portraying Houdini's life. I enjoyed every minute of it. I was not interested in learning all about the real Houdini, I could get books if I wanted to do that. The movie did a good enough job.