The Prestige (2006)

If you were to write a screenplay about a pair of rival magicians who both have acts which require them to be in two places at once, what would be the cheapest, least imaginative plot device you could implement to produce this magic trick? The answer reminds me of a sort of amusing exchange from Thank You for Smoking (2005): when a movie producer mentions that he plans on including cigarettes in a new sci-fi space movie, Aaron Eckhart’s Tobacco lobbyist asks, “But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?” to which the movie producer replies, “Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue: ‘Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.’”

Is it fitting or ironic that a movie about magicians duplicates the feeling of seeing a confounding magic trick, only to learn the secret, and find out that it’s incredibly disappointing? Christian Bale’s Alfred Borden performs an impossible stunt, where he stands on a wide stage with a pair of door frames on opposite ends, bounces a rubber ball across the stage, enters the door on the left, and exits from the door on the right, just in time to catch the bouncing ball. Hugh Jackman’s Robert Angier is in the audience, and when asked what he thought of this trick (dubbed “The Transporting Man” by Borden), utters, “It was the greatest magic trick I have ever seen.” Borden and Angier have a history that manages to be slightly less convoluted than the back-and-forth revenge tactics they exercise on one another involving “The Transporting Man” magic trick. The simpler revenge tactics involving a loaded pistol and the smashing of a birdcage, however, are one of the sparse points of interest to be found in the film before the nonsense with the Tesla machine collapses it into tedium. The Tesla machine is the lazily contrived plot device that is laid as the cornerstone upon which the entire plot’s architecture wobbly sits.

This dull and convenient contrivance could be overlooked if the architecture benefiting from it was at all compelling. The first time I saw the film, I was distracted by the deliberately tangled complications of the plot, but once the secret is revealed, all that is left for a second viewing is the routine. Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan know how to invent a gimmick strange enough to invite me on a search for answers, but Nolan has not figured out a way to make the journey rewarding in and of itself. Nolan’s direction is functional at best and insipid at worst. The only particularly rewarding aspect of watching The Prestige a second time is admiring the lighting, which is rich and elegant.

What is the most preposterously asinine story element is the gratuitous exchanging of identities between Fallon and Alfred. He says, “Fallon was both of us. We would switch,” needlessly jeopardizing and finally destroying the affections of both his wife and mistress.

As Alfred's mistress (but Robert's first) Scarlett Johansson is immensely watchable, of course...

...and, like Keira Knightley, does not seem out of place in period settings.

Her acting is fine. Michael Caine is quite good, but his character is underused. Christian Bale is enigmatic, but then again, next to Hugh Jackman’s theatrically arched eyebrows and inadvertently farcical overexpressiveness...


...Christian Bale is downright inscrutable.

Hugh Jackman is a gifted comic actor, but when called upon to play a dramatic role, the results are disastrous. I often found myself bursting into laughter when watching his excessively earnest overwrought grieving and raging in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006). He loses a wife tragically in this film too and gets a chance to do the excessively earnest overwrought grieving and raging all over again...

...duplicating the unintended mirth experienced during The Fountain (2006).

That is not to suggest that this sorry and perfunctory deception is in the same league as Aronofsky’s film; it is only to suggest that Hugh Jackman should stick to frivolous things like Broadway musicals and leave the serious histrionics for darker actors.

As for Christopher Nolan, he still hasn’t proved that he’s anything more than a hired gun with a few cards up his sleeve…which, I suppose, would make him ideal for manufacturing a film about a couple of frauds.


Grade: C-