Oh, good grief. The Prestige is in IMDb’s top 250 movies? It’s so bad, I’m actually going to say something nice about Christopher Nolan in a second here. I’ve never heard of source novelist Christopher Priest and no one I know has ever mentioned him to me, so I’m guessing he’s pretty godawful, which probably means the atrocious, idiotic plotting of The Prestige isn’t Nolan’s fault. The terrible writing of the scenes, well, that defect is surely Nolan & Co.’s, since it’s a stable of all his cinematic endeavors, but the asinine, illogical plotting… maybe not his fault.
The best performances in the film are from Rebecca Hall (big shock), David Bowie (ok, a little surprising), Andy Serkis (again, surprising) and Hugh Jackman–well, Hugh Jackman with a caveat. With The Prestige being Nolan and Nolan apparently being the twist ending zeitgeist with M. Night Shyamalan falling on hard times, the twist ending makes it impossible for Jackman, in his role as the protagonist, to actually give a good performance (imagine Jack knowing he was Tyler the whole time), but there’s a little bit where Jackman gets to do this humorous impersonation (with a fake nose) of himself and he’s hilarious. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long.
Christian Bale’s terrible (he’s not supposed to be a psychopath in every movie, is he?), Scarlett Johansson’s atrocious, Michael Caine’s not as bad as I figured. Johansson’s English accent is occasionally hilarious.
Nolan’s composition isn’t bad but the fragmented narrative is, as always, pinheaded.
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CREDITS
Directed by Christopher Nolan; screenplay by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, based on the novel by Christopher Priest; director of photography, Wally Pfister; edited by Lee Smith; music by David Julyan; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and Aaron Ryder; released by Warner Bros. and Touchstone Pictures.
Starring Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier), Christian Bale (Alfred Borden), Michael Caine (Cutter), Scarlett Johansson (Olivia), Piper Perabo (Julia McCullough), Rebecca Hall (Sarah Borden), David Bowie (Tesla) and Andy Serkis (Alley).
