The Prestige

'characters lack Prestige'

If you know me, then you know I love Christopher Nolan. I honestly believe he is the best director with the most unique vision and style out of all the new young directors. He made his mark way back in Memento and catapulted to fame and he shows a penchant for using editing techniques and scenic design to draw an audience into his character's psyche. He followed up Memento with Insomnia and then Batman Begins. My problem with Christopher Nolan is never with his directing or with his casting, it is usually with his scripts which are either spot-on or just flawed enough to make me disappointed. For example, few can argue that The Following, Memento, and Batman Begins are badly written. Insomnia, though not a bad film, doesn't reach the same caliber and quality of his other films in terms of script-to-screen vision. The same can be said now of The Prestige. The flaw with The Prestige is that it is essentially about two magicians in a dangerous game of one-upmanship that ultimately leads to their demise. The film is about obsession and the lengths it takes people, unfortunately, obsession in two despicable people is not as entertainig nor as interesting as I think it was for Christopher Nolan to explore it.

The plot starts with two magicians in training working for Michael Caine played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Bale screws up one of his knots and Jackman's wife dies in a trick gone wrong. Jackman blasts off two of Bale's fingers, etc. Along the way Scarlett Johannson shows up as a magician aide which both men fall in love with and Bale has a wife and daughter. Oh yeah, and Hugh Jackman goes to see Tessla played brilliantly by David Bowie. At the heart of the story though, is a tale of two magicians struggling to figure out each other's tricks and then how to destroy the other one to be the premiere magician in all of London. In doing so, they both sacrifice perhaps a little too much to create a climactic ending. The flaw is that in a story about two people fighting each other back and forth, the ending of a climactic resolution is an easy one to see coming and someone obviously has to die. The other problem is that since they are both so despicable in their obsession, as an audience member I don't really care which of them dies. My wife was glad to see David Bowie because it at least broke up the monotonous back and forth of the action between Jackman and Bale. Lastly, the film's story is very convoluted as I found I was the only one in a room of 5 intelligent people who had any idea what had actually occurred. I like complex films, but the story is really simple so the convolution of the story is completely unneccessary. The beauty of the script though is how the story and action of the film is all tied up neatly in a package with excellent foreshadowing before hand of the prestige (the final return of something in a trick). The film ties up everything within the world of being a magician starting off literally and ending metaphorically to create a movie that is certainly good for analysis for film techniques and devices used in creating film literature.
Also, It is well done regarding the backstage aspects of magic and it reveals some possible ways to do some old interesting tricks.

Now for the acting. There are some good and some bad things about this film although Bale is not one of them. Bale brings depth and a multitude of attitudes to this film despite a seemingly 2 dimensional character. The same cannot be said of Hugh Jackman who vibrates between angry revenge and unhealthy obsession throughout the whole of the film. The women played by Scarlett Johannson and Rebecca Hall do a fine job, although they are not fleshed out characters. Johannson has a moment or two but it seems like a waste of money to hire someone famous as her since Hall does just as well in just as high a profile role. Then there is Michael Caine and David Bowie. I have to say, David Bowie might have just made his career highlight in this film. He's perfect! So quirky, I friggin love it more than ring-pops! And Michael Caine, well...does he ever actually do a bad job? exactly.

Conclusion:Nolan shows his usual penchant of interesting scenes and great cinematography mixed with great editing skills, but the script, although beautiful, did need several rewrites or a good touch-up at least. The actors do fine given their narrowly defined roles with Bale doing extremely well by breaking out of the confines as much as possible to give the character a rounder edge. This film came out around the same time as The Illusionist and although this has more of a star studded cast and darker tone(I likey), The Illusionist is a film that will and probably does appeal to more people and is better than this one. Although, this is still a damn good film and Bowie fans everywhere should unite and see it.

3.7 out of 5

Wannabe