The Prestige

Saw the Prestige tonight. Pretty good movie. It's about two rival magicians who are obsessed with their trade and with each other. At first they're fairly friendly with each other until an accident poisons their relationship. Then it becomes a cycle of revenge between the two. Magicians being secretive by nature, those secrets which they carry drive them to creating grander illusions and more vicious schemes against each other. I wouldn't say it's the best, but I liked the period set pieces, the magic, the acting and the cinematography. The characters were pretty interesting as well. The dude who played Nikola Tesla was awesome. I can't help but want some kind of quasi-biographical/fictional account of Tesla and his rivalry with Thomas Edison now. And Andy Serkis! Fucking Gollum! That was cool. Everytime he came on screen I would think, "Now where do I know that guy from?" DOH! Well, what else does the guy get for hardly ever appearing as himself?

Pretty good movie overall. The twist is half predictable, which after watching the movie is kind of appropriate. Wonderful performances from Wolverine and Batman. My one complaint is that Christian Bale doesn't really speak clearly a lot of the time and he can be hard to understand. Apparently Scarlett Johansson is in it as well. Her greatest acting ability might be the ability to never be recognizable on screen. Not actually a good thing. But who cares, it was all good.

Christopher Nolan manages to get good performances out of everyone and keep things briskly paced. I kinda wish some characters had more screen time then they did but I think it would have caused the movie to drag and lose focus. The movie is about two men obsessed over magic and each other after all, not HUgh Jackman's lovely and talented assistant. One thing though, in the end I'm not sure if I really cared about the characters so much as the setting of the whole thing. Would it have been as interesting if set in modern day New York? Hmmmm...

Overall, I'd absolutely recommend this movie. At the very least it's a great film to look at.