October 21st, 2006 by Brent
Director Christopher Nolan is currently becoming one of my favorite directors. He has a small number of films under his belt and two of them are some of my favorite movies, Batman Begins and Memento. So naturally, I expected to love The Prestige, and I did, but I'm not sure everyone will.
The story revolves around two magicians involved in an intense rivalry. Robert Angier(Hugh Jackman) is the showman, but lacks the tricks that draw the crowds. Alfred Borden(Christian Bale) is the opposite, he creates some great tricks, but lacks the showmanship to really entertain. They start as partners, until a trick goes terrible wrong, breaking the two apart and resulting in an obsession to show up the other, often with dangerous results.
Nolan brings a great style to a very entertaining story. There are twists and turns that, much like a magic show, keep you guessing. Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and the rest of the cast all give outstanding performances. The thing that I see some audiences having a problem with is the choice of who to root for. These men do some very bad things to upstage the other, but both also loose things that are important to them. I love circumstances like this, to me it makes the characters more real, but it doesn't necessarily make them likable.
I loved the movie and have thought about it a lot since seeing it las night. My advice while watching The Prestige is to listen closely to Christian Bales words that start the film and he says throughout, "Are you watching closely?". You better be.
| Quick Review | |
|---|---|
| Plot/Storyline An engaging story of two magicians intense rivalry filled with some nice twists. |
9 |
| Acting/Characters The actors all do an amazing job, but the audience is torn for who to root for. |
8 |
| Visuals/Sound Nolan has a great sense of style, for those that have seen Batman Begins, the look is very similar for The Prestige. |
9 |
| Replay There are twists and turns that will make you want to watch again. |
7 |
| Overall Rating: | 9 |
| All scores are out of 10. Overall score is not an average. | |
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