The Stunt:

1.Chris is locked into handcuffs thourough the railing of a sixth floor balconoy.

2.Chris must pick the lock on door #1 that goes from the balconoy to the room.

3.Chris must pick the lock on door #2 which is the room entrance door to a hallway star case access door which is door #3.

4.From here Chris runs up three flights of stairs and pick two locks to open the trapdoor to get up on the roof.

5.Chris must climb through the trapdoor and grap a rope ladder suspended from a helicopter, which will then fly too one thousand feet to escape the possibility of being hit by debris.

6.Chris has four minutes to acomplish this feat.

7. The helicopter must take off after three minutes and thirty seconds to get above the thousand foot thresehold.



The Attempt:

1.Chris picks the handcuffs and turns to door #1.

2.Chris has trouble at door #1 and breaks a window and runs to door#2.

3.Chris picks door #2 and runs to door #3

4.Chris has trouble on door #3 but gets past it.

5.Chris get to the trapdoor and starts working on it.

6.Chris has problems on the trapdoor and the helicopter leaves to clear the demo zone without Chris.

7. The entire building implodes with Chris in it.

8.Everybody freaks out

9.The dust settles and a camera crew runs onto the grounds of the broken mess to search for Chris.

10.Chris arises screaming from the ground covered in dust about fifty feet from the wreckage and walks off.

So he died and yet lives on. That was the stunt in a nutshell. There were cameras mounted on the walls of the hotel to show Chris's escape path. The handcuffs were standard police Smith and Wesson brand. My guess on how he did it. He proceeds with the trick until he is in the room and no longer visable to the audience outside. At this point a pre recording takes over. He picks door #2 and runs to the ground floor. Takes cover from the building far enough away he isn't hurt but is covered in dust. He waits for the camera crew and makes his victory lap. Go figure.

You pretty much nailed it. There was very little that was live in that episode. The annoying host was live and the footage of Criss on the balcony was live. As soon as he breaks through the window and he leaves the audience view the pre-recorded tape takes over. And he doesn't get covered by dust from the explosion. Laughably they probably throw the dust on him.

This is honestly the worst use of fake "live" footage. The "live" footage shows him going down in the implosion. No one would ever survive that without at least some injury... and people know that. So everyone knows that the footage was fake. That destroys the entire stunt.

But someone on these very forums did ask how Criss survived. So there are some stupid people out there.

Oh but he was injurded in the fall!! Didn't you see him walk away. He was emotionaly and mentally in shock. The shock of debris puncturing his over inflated ego. My God He was injured!! If I had to cough to cover the sarcasm all of my internal organs would be laying on the keyboard right about now.

Hey guys, I could only watch the webcast, and was more than a little disappointed when I realized that it was not going to be the same as they showed on tv... If you watched it on tv, can you please tell me some things about it? Like, what was the last footage they showed of Criss before the building imploded, and did he do any tricks or other interesting stuff before, while the webcast was only showing the audience and other circumstantial things?

Though I would have loved to see more, it was still amazing! On the one hand I knew he would come out anywise- I almost expected an outcome like this before the show began- but on the other hand nevertheless I was shaking when the helicopter left and I didn't know what the heck was going on! I mean, in such a moment you never know...

I was shaking too, come on, even if you hate him, it looked like he was going to die. The last footage that was shown on television was him at the trapdoor trying to pick the two locks. The timer went to zero and he was still there, and then the building collapsed.

You were shaking? Lol! It is a FAKE TV show.

Everything we do is fake, but this seriously looked like he was going to die. I don't care what anyone say, Criss is my idol, and my reason to do magic. I hate it when people badmouth him.

Of course he looked as if he was going to die, that is called Drama and Suspense. It was planned and rehearsed that way on purpose. It's a basic script arrangement to create suspense of the moment.

How many magicians have performed Chinese Water Torture, Suspended Straitjacket, Tied to train tracks, etc... Where it looks as if at the very last moment, they are going to drown, fall, get squashed?

Look at Movies, One moment before the nuclear generator explodes, they escape on the spaceship, the hero is hand-cuffed to a bomb and barely escapes before the explosion. I could go on and on.

David Copperfield did the exact same illusion many many years ago; and although I did not see Criss Angel’s performance, I would wager that move for move and play by play, they were similar. (Except David Copperfield wore a shirt).

I’m sure people who enjoy watching Criss Angel were entertained, but anyone who actually believes he was legitimately in any danger needs to rethink this before arguing themselves into a corner.

No not everything is fake, what we do is called art...what Criss does is stupid and moronic crap. If Criss is your idol you might want to expand your horizons A LOT more. I am assuming you must be about 12-15. Idolize the greats that actually do magic, and people who you can actually learn legitimate conjuring skills from. Not a hobo MTV reject.

Come on man, Criss does magic too - just like the rest of us. And yes, I am 14. So what? He's the guy who got me into magic, and I'm glad he did. I love our art just as much as the next guy.

I watched this and was very unimpressed. I still remember watching (a rerun) David Copperfield's escape from an imploding building, and that was much more amazing. Even now as I compare the two of them, DC wins by a long shot.

- Criss was handcuffed and openly picked his way out. DC was locked in a safe. Honestly, what happened to escaping from handcuffs or that where you're not supposed to have a pick? Houdini did it right . . .

- Criss walked away from the wreckage. DC appeared under a blanket on a flat platform, and that for me was the most magical part of the illusion.

- The host on CA's show was very annoying, and it seemed that he knew what was going to happen and was not very nervous.

- How many of these escapes did Criss do when something "wasn't expected?" After a while, it becomes that you expect the unexpected rather than expect what was expected to be expected and be surprised by something you didn't expect? (phew!)

Criss was great at one point in time, but he's starting to become unoriginal and more based on stunts rather than magic. Criss said that this would be his last stunt like this, let's see him do some magic for once!

Give me a link to the David Copperfield version please.

Thank you very much.

EDIT: After watching the video, it doesn't even appear that Copperfield was even in a real building to begin with. It all looks very, very fake.

Angel's version is a lot better.

Even if it was fake, David at least put on a good show.