The Prestige

A movie about dueling magicians, not being a fan of magic tricks, I should have known this would not be my cup of tea. In London of the late 1800's, before our age of electronic entertainment, live magic shows were rivals in popularity to stage musicals and vaudeville. This is a 130 minute long movie released in 2006, is classified as a dramatic thriller and is rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing images.

The plot.....
Partners that are also magicians apprentices are beginning their careers, planning for their own acts. Robert Angier's wife Julia is the pretty girl in the act, the partners randomly selected plants from the audience. Alfred ties Julia's wrists for a trick that involves a water tank. The knot sticks and Julia dies in the tank of drowning. When Alfred cannot remember what knot he used, this drives Robert to the first act of his an Alfred's feud. Robert fouls Alfred's bullet catching trick causing him to lose tw fingers. This carries through many iterations of cruel one-upsmanship. Alfred eventually created a wonderful trick that Robert is obsessed stealing. This leads Robert to contact the famous electrial engineer Nikola Tesla. Tesla, played by David Bowie and pictured above creates an electrial device that clones objects. Robert uses this device to best Alfred special transported trick. As it turns out by cloning a new person is created at every instance, the Robert who died at the beginning of the movie was a clone and the situation staged to implicate Alfred. The ploy worked, Alfred ended up convicted of murder and was hanged. Before the execution Alfred discovers the body doubles and confides this to his assistant. After the execution the assistant kills Robert, the twist being the the assistant is Alfred's identical twin, who has been disguised from the start and was unknown as the twin, this had been the secret of Alfred trick.

The actors....

• Christian Bale as Alfred Bordent, the gifted apprentice with an excellent gift for catching the method. This is the same actor who I enjoyed so much in 3:10 to Yuma, an uninspiring effort in this movie.
• Hugh Jackman as the handsome stage polished magician who dies at the start of the movie, setting in place the movie's plot of a reflective story. I am pretty convinced that Jackman while an accomplished Broadway actor is pretty much a B movie guy. Time to head back to the X-Men movies, go Wolverine.
• Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe, the new magician's apprentice. What a waste in this movie.
• Piper Perabo as Julia McCullough Angier Robert's wife and magician's assistant. This is the girl from Coyote Ugly, she dies early, drowning during a trick.
• Michael Caine as Cutter the magicians mentor. I wonder if the really killed the birds early in the movie.

This movie was nominated for 2 Oscars, Best Achievement in Art Direction, and Best Achievement in Cinematography. Guess that I have no taste because I did not like it, scored at 23 of 50.

• Character Development 6 out of 10. There is certainly an evolution of the characters, from friends, then seperated by tragedy, anger escalating into cruel rivalry.
• Acting 5 out of 10. Mr. Caine who is in so many movies gave a character rendition similar to Cider House Rules, he is at the head of the class. The rest of the acting seems to overwhelmed by the scenery.
• Photography, cinematography 7 of 10. Dark and sparse, at least they stayed away from making it look like Phantom. The nominations were earned.
• Writing , script 2 out of 10. Dull, magic is for nerds.
• Concept 3 out of 10. Shifty but predictable.