[posted by Justin Levine]

Initial reactions to magician Criss Angel’s new show in Vegas would seem to indicate that it is the Ishtar of magic shows.

Richard Abowitz –

The responses talking to people afterward fell into two camps: the horrified and the bored. The bored seemed to be folks who, like me, had free review tickets; the horrified seemed to be those who paid.

Doug Elfman –

Creatively, “Believe” is a possibly unsalvageable “waste of time” and a “dead end” that literally bored some audience members to sleep.

On Saturday night, reaction was even worse.

“Everyone in the bathroom was chanting ‘bull—-‘” from the urinals, Damon Ranger of Chicago told me Saturday. “It was absolutely awful. You can ‘Believe’ how bad it is — because it’s terrible!”

People streamed out of the theater on Saturday screaming about how poor it was. A group of six women was led by a woman yelling furiously, demanding their money back.

“Dude, it’s a train wreck,” Ranger said. On a scale of 1 to 10, he declared “Believe” a zero.

…

John and Gail Michalak came from Los Angeles to see “Believe” with Karla Delemos. On the 1-to-10 scale, John gave it a 1; Gail a 3; and Delemos didn’t rate it — she fell asleep.

“I just got screwed,” John said. “He pulled three doves out of his hat. Go to the Magic Castle in L.A. if you want to see magic. But don’t come here.”

…

And Ranger was glad about one thing. After spending $55 for cheap seats — tickets are discounted by 25 percent during these first run of “ticketed previews” — he was given a free drink coupon.

“The best thing was getting this free drink coupon – the worst $55 Bud Light I’ll ever have.”

Ooch!

– Justin Levine