The Prestige

B

2006 saw the release of two movies about turn-of-the-century magicians. While I liked The Illusionist, I found myself struggling with this much darker movie. I had read that the movie was about two rival magicians, but "rivals" is putting it mildly. "Vengeful" would be more like it, or maybe "malicious." While that can work in something like The Count of Monte Cristo where it was for a reason, here it is just to feed their own egos. So I didn't care for either of the leads, and that opinion did not improve as the movie went along. Michael Caine plays a role he's done many times before and it has grown tiresome. Scarlett Johansson adds a level of sex appeal that seems misplaced for her small role as a magician's assistant. It isn't just the characters that are dark, the whole movie is very dark, including revealing a very grim disappearing bird trick long before the Humane Society started monitoring such things. It turns out that it is necessary for the plot, but that just means it will get unimaginably darker still.

Still, this is a movie that has a lot of appeal. Although the director liberally shuffles his timeline without any notice, the plot really isn't all that intricate. However it still is like a puzzle that you have to solve as you go along, mentally placing this piece here and that one there until the entire picture is finally revealed. It was annoying at first, but rewarding in the end. And the way the two magicians scheme against each other and everyone around them is also interesting, with parallels abounding.

One thing I did not care for was the accents employed by the main characters. Hugh Jackman starts out British, but then reverts to an American accent. His countrymen, Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe have also subverted their accents to sound American but in each role it comes out a little bit annoying. Jackman doesn't even look American, so I just didn't think it fit. Christian Bale uses a gruff cockney accent, but speaks in such a low grumble that I couldn't understand him much of the time. The actual American, Johanansson, throws on an English accent. So all of that seemed unnecessary to me.

Despite the criticism, the movie is pretty good. People who don't mind the lack of redeeming characters and like lots of twists and turns will really enjoy it. In fact, I enjoyed researching Nicola Tesla who shows up as a signficant side character (played by Brit David Bowie, using a slavic accent). So it will keep your brain working. However, because I thought the movie was too dark for my tastes, I can only give it a B.

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