Death Defying Acts PG

URGENT clarification. “Catherine Zeta Jones in Death Defying Acts” is not the Michael Douglas honeymoon tape.

But if you’re keen to watch a stilted, largely emotionless ride with a rickety old structure, in which the Welsh beauty tries desperately but ultimately fails to coax out a response other than coughs and snores. Hey, hey — this ain’t a bad second choice.

Death Defying Acts, Zeta’s latest film, opened in just only two cinemas in the US last month and made just shy of £1,800, or about half a wedding photo.

Which is a pity. Because this period romance between legendary escapologist Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) and a sham psychic called Mary McGarvie (Zeta) isn’t quite as bad as all that.

Uninspiring, it may be. And Zeta and Pearce could be described as a lame duck screen couple with about as much chemistry as Barrymore’s wedding night. But I’ve seen worse. Heck, I’ve seen worse this week.

The famous Houdini visits Edinburgh during his world on tour and is in the middle of a world tour. During a visit to Edinburgh, he pl-pledges to give £10,000 to any psychic who can tell him what his mother’s last words were.

Zeta’s a medium probably a large around the hips, mind who reckons if she gets close enough to the magic man, him she can somehow unearth the words and pass it off as a trick, thus netting the cash for her self and her daughter Benji (Saoirse Ronan, AKA the kid from Atonement).

Of course, she and Houdini fall for each other and the film centres on whether or not McGarvie can put her feelings to one side for the con him out of the cash. It’s a promising set-up but which brings to mind The Prestige, Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan’s film about two rival magicians in Victorian London.

Sadly, it’s nowhere near as good.

And with virtually no emphasis on the magic business itself, we’re just left with ends up as just a reasonable Victorian love story, slightly spoiled by a few niggles.

Including, Catherine Zeta-Jones Zeta’s Scottish accent. Which flies between Edinburgh and Dublin more times a day than Aer Lingus.

And also, the bizarre way nobody can pronounce Mary McGarvie’s surname properly.

So you get everything from Mary McGravy to Mary Mugabe¿with the notable exception of Mary flipping McGarvie.

It’s no one-star disaster. But someone who picked up an Oscar for Chicago six years ago should be starring in films that are a bit better than this.

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