The Prestige

The Prestige
Directed: Christopher Nolan

Two magicians’ friendship turns into a rivalry as one suspects the other of practicing actual magic instead of just the art of illusion.

Wow! This is the movie that should have followed Memento. Christopher Nolan followed up Memento with Insomnia, which was a standard thriller and I found it very disappointing after Memento. I loved Batman Begins, but it was a superhero movie. The Prestige felt more like it was created by the same director that made Memento, even though it was not told backwards. This movie had so much stuff going on in it, with flashbacks and flash forwards, and twists and turns. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on, but not losing sight of the story. I wasn’t so distracted by trying to figure it out. There wasn’t a big “twist” like with Sixth Sense. It was more little twists in how each magician tried to get back at the other one since they never thought they were even.

I thought Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale were fantastic. I went back and forth liking and being annoyed by their characters depending on what they were dealing with in their life at that point in the movie. I would have liked Scarlett Johansson’s fleshed out a bit more, no pun intended. She was just window dressing. It felt a tad rushed when she was falling for Hugh Jackman’s character, but we were told that she had fallen in love with Christian Bale’s character. It would have been nice to see a glimpse of that happening. It might have been there at one point, but cut out to keep the movie from being too long. I thought maybe a scene or two wouldn’t have hurt. She didn’t really provide much to the story though.

I thought the character of Tesla was interesting, but I was distracted by David Bowie playing it since I just kept thinking how old he looked. I ended up researching Tesla after the movie to see if it was true about Thomas Edison hating him. They did work together, but had a falling out. It just wasn’t exactly like the movie made it, but that’s movies for ya.

There is so much to talk about with the movie, especially what I thought was going on compared to what was really going on, but there is no way to talk about it without spoiling it for those that haven’t seen it. I did want to see it immediately after it ended just to see if I would catch certain things the second time around. I also wanted to see it again since it was so entertaining. It was a rich, complex story, but not so confusing that you couldn’t follow what was going on. You just need to pay attention to catch everything. It made you think, which I haven’t done while watching a movie in a while.

Grade: A

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