Since it's April Fools' Day, let's talk about what fools us.

Specifically, let's talk Vegas magic shows. Criss Angel and the Cirque du Soleil folks made some mighty big claims in baiting the hook for the joint venture they plan next year.

But the ballyhoo for "the best show in the world," as Angel promised, did conjure an elephant in the room we've mostly been ignoring in terms of the Las Vegas-style magic revue.

Specifically, how many grown-ups who have seen a magic show before are truly impressed by the illusions?

I'm talking in vague terms here, because each of our local stars offers a few surprises.

But generally, Vegas magic involves leggy assistants, big critters or the magician himself going into funny-shaped cabinets to either vanish or be transformed into leggy assistants, big critters or the magician himself.

If the Internet age hasn't given you the specifics of how these contraptions work, common sense gives you basic notions. That's part of the reason why Angel and David Blaine have done so well taking magic off the stage to real locations, where mirrors and trapdoors aren't so easily employed.

Serge Denoncourt, director of the upcoming show, promised to "bring to Vegas a different magic show, and I would say it's about time."

Here, here.

"I think that magicians have been relying on the same old, age-old kind of tricks and the way to present them. They haven't thought out of the box," Angel said without acknowledging a pun.

"Magic has one advantage that any other art form does not have. If someone was to play the piano right now and they suck? You would know it immediately," he added. "If somebody was a horrible magician -- had the charisma of a toenail -- yet pulled off the trick, you would applaud because you're unaware of how it functions. What other art form has that?"

Cirque was exploring a magic show before Angel became the frontman. "Through our technology and our research we can also bring new things to him. Things that bring our magic further," said Cirque veteran Gilles Ste-Croix.

"We discard everything that is obvious, that's been done a thousand times," he added. "Let's find new things."

It's hard to say why we waited for Cirque to do this. Economic incentives and the miracles of everyday technology surely factor in. "When David Copperfield came out, he really did new things that blew everybody's mind," Ste-Croix noted.

But Copperfield no longer has a financial motive to generate new material for a CBS special each year. His tireless work ethic no longer seems centered on innovation.

It's Cirque that now has the impetus and a reputation on the line. "Now we have to go somewhere else. Now we have to go further than that," Ste-Croix says.

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.