If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This looks so good. Majorca, in the main, standing in for Greece. And it should have been good. The novel was a rite of passage for those of a certain age and this little picture is what we get. Pretty picture, pretty poor. I thought watching this and seeing nothing, not only not make sense, but not even be involving. Surely the director has some vision here because surely Fowles in adapting his own novel, will have some vision. But, no the more it goes on, the more it goes on. Poor Michael Caine looks lost wandering through this bland and meaningless landscape of pretentiousness. He is lost, as are we and the suspicions I had as I watched aghast was that maybe nobody knew what was going on or what they were doing. The plentiful extras supplied with the Blu-ray confirm this with the contribution of the director's son who apparently got to help with the filming, particularly helpful. Majorca was beautiful and largely unspoilt but nobody least of all Fowles seemed to know what they were doing there. So sad because we have a very pretty Anna Karina and Candice Bergen falling over themselves to look silly as Anthony Quinn prattles on, seemingly the only one who has any belief in the project that was clearly dead even before the cameras began to roll.

Don't get me wrong. I've never tried the drug myself, but what I've read and learned about LSD is that it's a dangerous psychedelic drug. It produces hallucinations. Users see, hear and feel things that seem real to them, but don't really exist. So, this movie is like a big LSD trip. Or, it's plot, if one can call it that, is imaginary but it isn't. Or is it real and not imaginary? I've never read any of John Fowles works. He was writing around the time I graduated from high school, served in the Army and went to college. I've heard and read about him, but his writing style and topics never appealed to me. So, I wouldn't be able to compare this film to his novel by the same name. But, I've always thought that a movie should stand on its own – no matter how faithful it is to its source material. That closeness or diversion from source material, of course, is one area of criticism. But, a film (or play) is based on a plot (or so we're taught in traditional theater) and much more. It's the story, the sets and scenery, the technical works, and most importantly, the directing and the acting. "The Magus" seems to be "plotless." Unless one considers that the message or conclusion is that Nicholas Urfe, played by Michael Caine, is a self-centered, selfish, uncaring, pleasure-seeking, and otherwise heartless waste of a human being. But, I got that much in the first few minutes of the film – before all the machinations in the Mediterranean materialize (or, do they?). I can't really say much about the acting because the roles are multi-faceted parts in a segmented plot that doesn't really exist. I know – it really doesn't make sense, does it? But, it's called art. I chuckle, and hope you do too. So, Fowles wrote in the 1960s. That was the time of the hippies, the so-called sexual revolution, and the emerging drug culture. Timothy Leary was expounding on the merits of LSD. He taught at Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley. He surely had considerable influence with the young generation of that time (many of us excluded, of course). Perhaps he influenced Fowles in his writing. Or, was it the other way around? Or, perhaps mutual?Whatever influences there were in the time of this film (also made in the 1960s, you will note), one today might choose between watching this movie or taking some LSD (is that the correct term?) to achieve the same effect. That is, minus any euphoria, if there is such associated with LSD. But, of course, I recommend neither. My three stars are for the beautiful scenery and camera work. I would have given one more, but the musical score was so bad and out of place that it even detracted from the scenery. Incidentally, the movie is misleading on the meaning of the title. Anthony Quinn or Michael Caine's character explains that it is Latin for magic. That's a very minor definition. A Magus was a hereditary member of a pagan priestly class in ancient Media and Persia. The word is more commonly applied in modern times to sorcery. That's quite different from the tricks and illusions associated with modern magicians.

Not a bad movie, but please do not watch this until you have read the book. The book is much better, very readable, and much deeper and richer. This is like eating fish sticks when you could spend a little time and eat sashimi. The entire point of the story is muddled in this movie and becomes lost. The point made by the movie is nothing like the point of the book, which must be thought about and considered in different contexts to understand the main character's final actions and motivations. John Fowles is a master, give him the benefit of the doubt. This movie can be watched after, as a fun way to see a novice's understanding of the sex and lies in the book.

I don't like many movies at all, I feel pretty dumb for rating a movie I haven't seen for 37 years, and I seldom like one so much that I run out and but the book. But I did, and I liked it too.Without giving away the ending, I think it's safe to say this much: I despise stories based on the supernatural or mysteries that remain unsolved. Let me just add that this movie makes you wonder what magic a benevolent psychotherapist might work if he could cheat in the service of salvation--if, for the sake of delivering a man from himself, no holds were barred.I was 29 years old when I saw this movie, and things were different in 1968, but I still like movies I can easily follow. It surprises me to read that _The Magus_ is vague or confused. If I got it, anybody would. _The Ipcress File_ had introduced me to Michael Caine in 1965, but I'm not sure I'd seen Candace Bergen before. She was never so beautiful.