My head's about to explode after watching this DVD, and not in the good way. There's a lot of good and a lot of bad on this DVD, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Effect

The effects are many. This is a gimmick that allows you to everything from card transpos, cards across, cards to pocket, and a ton more. Watch the video demo, and you'll get a sense of the effects. Craig has brought to the table some excellent additions to several classic plots that make the effects much, much better. This gimmick makes a lot of incredible things possible. I really appreciate his thinking and additions to these plots.

Method

Method . . . the method is the gimmick along with some pretty standard slight of hand (depending on the effect you're doing). Most of the methods are well within the range of your average card worker. There are a couple of palm/side steals that are a little bit more advanced, but over all the methods are very doable, and very legitimate. Some of the effects are a bit overly complicated in the sense that you need 10 or so "moves" to pull it off, but again, even these are doable . . . it's just a lot. Some methods use an elaborate setup, while others simply use a regular deck and the gimmicked card.

Ad Copy Integrity

The ad copy is very solid. The effects really are as clean as they claim to be in the print ad. The gimmick allows you to do some super clean vanishes. The only issue I have with the advertising is the demo video. There is a moment in the trailer that shows a card turning blank, and even the voice over by David Penn claims that the gimmick allows you to turn a card blank. I don't remember seeing that on the DVD anywhere.

Product Quality

You receive two gimmicks printed with Mandolin backs, one red, one blue. They're very well made, though I still prefer to use 808's (Rider back) rather than 809's (Mandolin back), so I'll likely never use the gimmick. So you've seen all the good (for the most part), now it's on to the bad, and it all pretty much relates to product quality if you don't mind me lumping in the teaching segments as part of "product quality."

Let's start with the basic production. First, the lighting on Craig's hands was pretty bad. You could not see the faces of the cards (they were too bright) for 70% of the time or better. The glare was too strong. Next we have Blammo (or Blamo) the dog. I love that dog s/he's beautiful, but also a huge distraction. Constantly through the explanations, Craig would - mid sentence - talk to Blammo which totally distracted from the "teaching." Further, the dog was not stationary, moving around the studio, etc.

Then, the explanations were soooooooooo boring, that I've (literally) watched this DVD 5 times (over the past year or so), because every single time I fell asleep. And, anyone who knows me, knows that something putting me to sleep is hard. I have a weird sleep disorder that's a relative of insomnia. Maybe this DVD is the cure for those of us who suffer from it. No joke, at one point, I fell asleep (tonight while watching) while sitting at my desk watching it on my laptop. I actually started dreaming. I was dreaming of my grandfather's funeral that happened a few years back. In the dream, I could hear my grandmother sort of whimpering. Then I woke up, and it Blammo was in the background whimpering on the set somewhere (providing audio for my dream).

So this DVD is putting me to sleep and making me dream of a funeral. Next, I again fell asleep, and my snoring was so loud that it startled me and woke me up. I know it sounds like I'm making this up to be funny, but I'm not. This really happened.

Maybe this will put it into perspective. 45 minutes into the DVD, Craig had only gone through 3 effects. He is extremely long winded and very hard to listen to. I love him on Wizard Product Reviews, and I think he's a super nice guy based on everything I've seen and a few very minor email exchanges, but man he is hard to listen to.

What's worse is that none of the effects were actually performed on the DVD. You only get explanations. And they all start out something like this, "for this trick you'll need to set up your deck this way, then you'll do this move, then you'll put this here, and do such and such move, and then you'll do this, and then you'll do that, etc." He just walks you through the set up and explanation as if you've already seen the presentation. In fact there was even one instance where he said, "for the patter, refer to the presentation." There was no presentation anywhere on the DVD that I could find. I even chose the "Play All" option.

If they would have cut out every time he repeated himself, the DVD would have easily been a third of the length. In fact, at the end of Twist with a Twist the editor just faded him out. He was still talking, but they cut it short. He just kept rambling. On more than one occasion he would use the phrase, "like I said" and then just repeat something he'd already explained. We can rewind folks. I don't need to hear it repeated three times. It's annoying, not helpful.

Ok. That's enough picking on Craig. However, I should point out that I'm not just nit picking and being petty. I point this out because, regardless of the effects, this video is hard to watch, and the learning experiences is not fun. That's useful information in my opinion. Craig, if you're listening . . . just breathe brother. Take a deep breath and pause once in a while.

Final Thoughts

As you know, to me, effects (typically) are not the focus of my review, but rather, method, quality, price, advertisement integrity, etc. However, there are a few cases when I let effect impact the review to some degree. One of those cases is when someone adds something to a classic effect that I feel is valuable. And that is certainly the case here with Craig Petty's Pentacle 2000. I would say that all of his additions and versions of the plots shown on this DVD are vast improvements.

Not everyone will agree with me on that, but the big point here is that this DVD isn't just something thrown together with a bunch of half-arsed ideas. These are improvements to the method and the effect that make this effects superior and many ways. So taking the good with the bad, I definitely would recommend this product if you think you can make it through the teaching segments. And that's no small feat. You will find some very visual and very magical looking effects if you make the journey.

Final Verdict:
4 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem.

The old adage states “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” Here I need to paraphrase and say, “you can’t judge a trick by it’s DVD box cover.” When I unpacked my allotment from the My Lovely Assistant Product Dispersement Center, the cover of this caught my eye. As you can see, there is a pentacle in a circle with flames and smoke raising from it with the title in horror movie font. “Something different, perhaps bizarre,” I thought. A few minutes with the DVD, I learned that its just card tricks. A little disappointing I must say.

Pentacle 2000 is re-release from UK magician, Craig Petty. This is my first exposure to his work and the products from World Magic Company. I was aware of Mr. Petty and his partner, David Penn’s web review show due to the controversy they triggered with their review of Squeak Technique. With their focus on crediting, I looked forward to thorough crediting.

In the package, you receive an instructional DVD and the Pentacle gimmicks - red and blue back in Mandolin backs. This may or may not be a concern to you. While Petty doesn't exactly claim originality to the gimmick, he doesn't provide credit or predecessors either. Based on my research, the gimmick is based on a DeLand gimmick which dates back to the early 1900’s. A more recent incarnation was released by Joshua Jay in 2002 in Magic Magazine. Jay’s version was face-up while the Pentacle is face-down. Jay’s was tipped into a magazine and available for the cost of the issue. Pentacle 2000 should have been too.

The Pentacle gimmick is well printed and as expected matches the Mandolins perfectly. In performance, one needs to watch the angles and light on the Pentacle gimmick as Petty often points out. The eye can see the difference between a few spread cards and a printed, flat surface. Audience and performance management skills are a must.

The DVD contains seven tricks using the gimmick. The DVD is shot in what I am told is the set for their magic review show - complete with their pet dog. Each segment is Petty sitting in front of the camera at a distance explaining the tricks with occasional close-ups to truly see what is going on. Crediting for more current moves is adequate. There are no performances so the viewer has no idea how they play. The explanations feel unplanned and stream of consciousness. This means verbal space fillers rule the day. This could have been corrected with a script.

More experienced magicians won’t much interest in three: Twist with a Twist, Cards Across and Cards to Pocket as most already have their “go-to” methods and these aren’t likely to change minds. The others seem interesting but without a clear idea of the intended effect, its a tough call. Fast Hands and Signed Card felt a little convoluted to me but I could just become lost in the explanation. The bonus trick, Skittles, that combined a Rainbow deck and the Pentacle caught my attention and seemed to have possibility.

To get full use of this package, one would need to a beginning to intermediate magician with patience or experience learning from YouTube as that is how it feels. I believe that like Jay’s Overlap card, Pentacle 2000 should have been released in a magazine and not a $30.00 DVD package. Publishing it in a magazine would have required writing and, most importantly, editing to help us see the potential that seems to be there.