影片开始处，魔术设计师Carter以叙述的语调缓缓道来魔术世界的神秘之处: Audience are apt to be fooled by magician, even they know the truth。Carter在镜头中始终都是那么安详而富有智慧，与其说他为魔术师们在提供表演的器械，还不如说他在默默注视魔术世界的动向。与两个影片主角不同，Carter让我们体会到了魔术的艺术魅力所在，一如他在影片开始与结尾处的旁白。应该说，故事从头到尾都在讲述Angel和Bolton这对冤家的拉锯戏: Bolton先后夺走了Angel心爱女人, 妻子和情人助手Olivia, 后来又夺走了搭档，Angel辗转好不容易得到一个“移形换影”机（物理意义上的），又被Carter告知他有个生物学意义上的“移形换影”兄弟。当然编剧在叙事中也采用了精妙的倒叙和插叙手法，通过主角的交叉回忆讲叙一个个情节，叙事严密但很有条理。
以故事的结尾看观点：
1， Carter的关于魔术三步的阐述，在最后的时刻让我们对魔术有了比开始更深刻的认识。似乎他不仅仅是在讲魔术，而是让我们可以引述到生活的其他方面。对新鲜事物的敏感和期盼是人类的天性，人性之中有希望被隐瞒或欺骗的一面，跟人性中贪婪的一面和在一起就会带来阴暗，走向毁灭。
2， 编剧给了Angel一个好听的名字，但是相比Bolton却是一个更残酷的结局：Angel丧失了所有以至于生命，Bolton兄弟存活了一个且还有女儿去爱。料想可能是他更不热爱老是剽窃和抄袭的Angel，Bolton虽然亦非“正人君子”，却也是有“真”本事的人：玩火枪，有秘籍，不去找爱迪生...比Angel“原创”一点。
以下是这部影片的经典台词 -
Every magic trick consists of 3 parts or snatches: The first part is called "the pledge", magician shows something ordinary; The second part is called "the turn", the magician tries the ordinary some thing and make it something extrordinary. But you couldn't applaud because making something disappear is not enough, you have to bring it back. Now you're looking for the secrets, but you won't find it because of course you don't really look into, you don't really like to work it out, you want to be fooled...
-Magic Designer "Carter"
You never understood why we did this.The audience knows the truth, the world is simple, pitiful, so...so liitle of ? withthrew. But if you can fool all them, even for a second, then you can make then wonder, then you...got to see something very special.
-Robert Angel said to Alfred BoltonYou
