Product description : Borrow a pack of card, let the spectator selects a card and you instantly know which card it is.
Price and where to buy it : This is sold at $25 and you can find it in nearly every Murphy's magic « partner » shop !
What you get : You get a cardboard DVD case with a gimmick and a DVD in which Tom and Shin are jamming around over Insight. The DVD is quite well shot and the explanations are clear and concise. However, it's not structured so you don't have a part for each routine mainly because it's more a creative session in which they are giving more ideas than routines.
The pros and the cons : Here is the core of my review, let's begin with the cons, as I will usually be doing, I prefer to keep the good things for the end.
THE CONS :
As stated before, the DVD give you ideas but not routines and I think it would have been better if you get like 3 to 4 solid pieces of magic rather than 10 weak ideas. I respect the creativity process they went through but please for your next release, include routines.
You only get 1 gimmick which, for the price of the trick, isn't enough I think. It costs nothing so they could have added at least 3 gimmicks so you would be ready in any situation.
It's quite angle sensitive.. I wouldn't do it surrounded.
You can borrow a deck of cards but still, you will have to have your own cardbox just in front of you which is completely illogical if you just borrowed the deck.
A similar (identical) trick was put out many years ago, I won't discuss about that here because I don't know if it's an independant creation but still, you will have to take it into account.
THE PROS :
It's cheap compared to most tricks on the market (even if, as I said, they could have put more gimmicks)
It does the work, you get to know the freely chosen card which is very cool when you think about it. You can then go into any revelation you like.
Although old, this principle can be applied to other objects I think so you can get peeks of informations.
You can borrow a deck of cards, I think this is just for magician sake because nobody will have a deck of cards ready on them other than magicians. But still, it's cool to have an ungimmicked deck so you're free to perform any routine you want and do Insight whenever you want.
They say the gimmick was the « best » on the market but you can find refills in any art and craft store, I think for $5, you will have enough for the rest of your life.
Overall rating : It's not a bad idea at all but the whole thing, at the end of the day, is knowing a freely selected card. Will spectator see the differences with a force ? I know it's a hard question, wether to use peek, gimmicks, forces to know the identity of the card. Insight does the job, with a few limitations, 2/4 hearts.
As for the difficulty level, not that hard to do, you will need audience management so they don't go behind you but except from that, it's easy to do, 2/5 stars.
Similar products : Nathan Kranzo had a similar effect called the grumble glim which was quite nice. The trick which is the same as Insight is called The invisible eye by Dennis Marks