Movie great, Ending So-So
3.5/4 stars

Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier rise to become world-renowned stage magicians. Early in their careers, they meet and a bitter feud develops as they constantly try to out-do, and even sabotage, the other's acts The events of the past are revealed primarily through each of the magicians' diaries. Borden develops an act called The Transported Man, and an improved version named The New Transported Man, which appears to move him from one closed cabinet to another in the blink of an eye and without appearing to pass through the intervening space. The act seems to defy physics and puts all previous acts to shame. Although never explicitly revealed, it seems probable that the secret of The Transported Man is that Borden, all his life, has been two people; his trick involves extreme use of a twin brother as a double, to the extent that they both live the same life. Angier cannot discern the method that Borden uses and desperately tries to equal him, and with the help of the acclaimed physicist Nikola Tesla For Angier's trick, Tesla successfully creates a device capable of teleporting a being from one place to another, but which has a surprising side-effect.

With the help of some first-rate artists on both sides of the camera, Nolan (along with his brother and co-writer Jonathan) has fashioned a fine looking work from Christopher Priest's popular novel. The solid production values - meticulous period details beautifully enhanced by Wally Pfiser's glowing cinematography - offer a compelling backdrop for the human drama at the movie's core. More than anything else, the film is a tribute to the stagecraft inherent in the art of magic making. The movie provides not only a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into how that magic is made, but works its own sleight-of-hand trickery on the audience with its complex, multi-level time structure and its I-never-saw-that-coming, turnabout ending.

The performances by Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, and David Bowie are all top notch, with Bale and Jackman, in particular, getting to display some of their acting chops in the lead roles.

On the slightly negative side, the film might have been more successful had it remained entirely in the realm of the real world of magic making and resisted the temptation of turning to science fiction to help move its plot along.

The Prestige
Christopher Nolan
Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman
PG-13 for violence and disturbing images.
130 minutes, 2 hours 10 minutes

Review by Wolfman