David Copperfield

David Copperfield doesn't need much advertising to fill 650 seats in the MGM Grand's Hollywood Theatre. But the lack of ballyhoo means that only the bad news goes national.

Last year, it was an FBI raid on the magician's Las Vegas warehouse, part of a sexual assault investigation that produced no charges. Last week, it was a stage assistant injured by an industrial fan during an illusion that's been performed thousands of times.

Add the distractions of the new Criss Angel show across the street, and it's easy to overlook the fact that Copperfield plans to do four shows today and Saturday, as he was to do on Christmas day. And it's very likely all of them will be full.

Choose your perception glass as half-empty or half full; either way you're right. Yes, the dazzle has dimmed for the magician who spent much of this decade on cruise-control. But you're still in good hands for one of the most enduringly solid entertainments on the Strip, and ticket-buyers don't need to be hit over the head to understand that.

At 52, Copperfield is easing into a lion-in-winter phase. He still makes his first appearance on a Harley-in-a-box, but also makes fun of his '80s mullet in a video. It's TV footage of a straitjacket escape. Is it a coincidence he chooses to show that particular stunt, similar to one Angel is doing live every night across the street?

But giving up one touchdown to "Believe" doesn't mean the rest of the game isn't a blowout. Copperfield understands a magic show can be funny and even touching, but at the end of the day it has to be about fooling you.

Some illusions are variations on the classics. There's a drawn-out bit where Copperfield purports to pass through solid steel and a similar one (which injured the assistant) where he ventures the same with the giant industrial fan. Both lose a bit of suspense as soon as the magician is concealed behind panels or drapes, allowing ample time for whatever's going on back there.

The lesser stuff is more than balanced by the two corkers. The first actually weaves together several pieces, building upon a narrative Copperfield relates about his own childhood. His grandfather, he says, quit talking to him the day he decided to turn pro: "Magic's a hobby, not a job."

Numbers cited by random audience members turn out to be the ones inside a previously locked box, the same process known in other magic shows (including Angel's) as the "prediction board."

But Copperfield weaves it into the family story, and adds extra twists. He doesn't merely produce the information he collected -- such as the color of one guy's underwear -- on paper. He also plays back his recorded voice making the correct predictions, and has the numbers appear on rusty old license plates.

It's not over yet. Audience members circle around and hold a rope while, in a blink of an eye, the magician produces a 1948 Lincoln convertible that also figured into the story. Trap door in the ground, right? Ah, but some crowd volunteers were stationed underneath, wrapping their arms around support pillars for the vehicle.

This extended sequence is unparalleled in a Las Vegas magic show. But a good showman doesn't forget the encore.

It's another twist on a standard, in which a magician disappears, then turns up in the back of the theater. But what a variation: A dozen or so people from the audience are seated in a framework that looks like a futuristic jury box, then vanish before waving at you from the back of the room.

The show may be well-oiled to the point of complacency, but on this night the star was snapped out of his routine by an audience recruit from... Latvia? Named... Svetlana?

Yes, she had "plant" written all over her. But the lady who talked like Zsa Zsa Gabor wouldn't surrender her new wedding ring for the bit, no matter how much Copperfield pleaded: "It's a magic show. You will get it back. ... This little trick won't work with a shoe."

So he had to send her back and start over. He may be David Copperfield, but there's only so much magic a guy can do.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.