Having written extensively about Las Vegas for nearly 10 years, I have stayed at almost every hotel, eaten at a lot of the restaurants, visited all of the major attractions, and seen virtually all of the shows that have played the stages in and around town. Many of those shows have been of the magic variety and this is where I am running into trouble. You see, I just don’t get traditional magic shows anymore, primarily because after having seen every single one of them that ever played in Las Vegas they have become rote and predictable to me.

So my biggest problem with “Xtreme Magic starring Dirk Arthur,” now playing at the Tropicana, is not really with Dirk Arthur, but with myself. I choose to blame Gob Bluth in “Arrested Development.”

Arthur’s show is as traditional magic as they come, from sawing a woman (or two) in half to suddenly appearing and disappearing objects, people, and animals. There are no surprises here and nothing original, at least to my jaded eyes.

Having said all that, Arthur is a capable illusionist most of the time. If I had to assign a percentage to it, I’d say that roughly 75% of the tricks are done well, with all of the attendant smoke and mirrors hiding whatever may be up his proverbial sleeve. The set pieces where a lovely assistant hops in a box and moments later is replaced by a jungle cat of some kind are executed flawlessly and at least one of his big illusions, where a helicopter seems to appear out of nowhere, is impressive.

The other 25% has some issues. The use of look-a-likes for the lead magician is a time-honored tradition but it’s usually a good idea to have the look-a-like actually look like the person they are trying to make you believe they are. Arthur’s body double was wearing a bad wig, looked about 20 years younger, and may have been female. Granted you have to know where to look to see it but that leads me back to my whole jaded thing – I know where to look. In fact one trick was leading to the inevitable resolution where Arthur appears in the middle of the audience and I saw it coming a mile away – I even turned around in my seat to watch him jump up onto the booth behind me long before anyone else noticed he was there.

And then there’s the whirling blades of death. Okay, in Arthur’s case it was more of a giant corkscrew of death, but the concept is the same: the magician is locked in a box and some dangerous looking instrument of medieval torture is lowered toward the box. Will he survive?!

SPOILER ALERT: He survives.

There are very few magic shows left in Las Vegas and Dirk Arthur’s suffers by comparison. He has none of the wit or originality of Penn & Teller, none of the charm or style of Lance Burton, and even though there are “wild” animals, the show lacks the spectacle of Siegfried and Roy’s former extravaganza.

Of course, Arthur’s show also doesn’t have the ticket prices of any of those aforementioned acts (2-for-1 pricing brings it to about $20). Plus, playing twice daily (except Friday) during the afternoon makes this one of the few options for daytime entertainment. And as one of the last traditional magic acts left in Las Vegas, Dirk Arthur seems to represent a dying breed.

So what it comes down to is this: if a magic show featuring women being sawed in half and helicopters appearing out of nowhere sounds like something you’d like to see, Dirk Arthur’s show is the one to go to in Las Vegas. If you’re looking for more originality in your illusions, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.