The Prestige

To talk more about the movie's layers is to risk giving away too much. I'll say only that this film confirms Nolan's status as the director whose work I look forward to more than any other.

For all the film's murky misdirections, it is very enjoyable. That's because Nolan's recreation of the illusionists' backstage world is so marvelously detailed, including as it does revelations of how some of their best tricks are accomplished.

Christopher Nolan's The Prestige has just about everything I require in a movie about magicians, except ... the Prestige.

Has its moments.

By describing the structure of a great trick in a movie about a great trick, The Prestige makes a promise it can't keep. Its third act is about as convincing as a photo of a cow jumping over the moon.

The Prestige is a trick box with too many false bottoms. Ultimately, the last one simply gives way -- leaving us with a hole, and a little residual darkness, but not much else.

Thus, we find ourselves watching an ice-cold movie about competition that contains not a shred of rooting interest.

One of the most underrated movies ever! It's pure magic, litteraly. It explores numerous themes like competition, dedication, influence and much, much more. Non-linear narrative is a real work of art here.

Christopher Nolan's films are always so overwritten, non-linear, and busy. There is too much going on for me to involve myself enough to care. I feared there would be an unrealistic twist at the end (I was right). I also suspected some of the other strange happenings along the way (I was right about those, too). Nolan tries too hard, which makes his films unnecessarily stressful to watch.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Such a fuss has been made of this movie that I expected something out-of-the-box, and for anyone willing to believe the unbelievable it might even seem so. It’s another example of how moviegoers and makers have embraced the format of ‘Style over Substance’. Everything about the story is so far-fetched and unbelievable that most of the time it’s simply not worth even considering the outcomes. It’s presented as if its fiction-fact, then swings into ridiculous science-fiction; Human Cloning in the 1890s! (and regularly overnight at that) If it weren’t for some reasonably convincing performances from the leads, stylish art direction and production design, moody lighting and cinematography (except for some unsteady hand–held sections) this production would have fallen over in a heap. As it is, it holds it's own based on stylish looks smothered in over-done smoke and mirrors camouflage. Many seem to go for this style and bluster but some will come away feeling cheated and taken for fools (and not in any sort **** way), it doesn’t do to think too much about this type of basically too clever for its own good writing. Characters are bleak and over-the-top nasty, not leaving much (if anything) to admire.

The biggest surprise of the movie is how anyone can have one of the sexiest actresses in the Western world (ScarJo) and so under-use her in favor of a plot which filled me with utter disinterest at the climax. By the end I couldn't care less which character's dead and which is alive.