Film Review: the Prestige

Director Christopher Nolan, hot off of the success of BATMAN BEGINS, turns his sights to something less iconic and more character driven with THE PRESTIGE, the second of 2006 dueling magician/illusionist films following THE ILLUSIONIST.

Although both films deal with a realistic look into the world of illusionists this film is the more lavish of the two sporting big names like Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale and Michael Caine. I’ll try not to compare the two too much.

Nolan, with his brother Jonathan, have crafted a superb screenplay that presents both characters of Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) as competing illusionist who were once friends. The Nolan brothers adequately present the two as two halves of the same coin and you can’t have one without the other, only these two never figure that out. It’s a great film about obsession and how far one person will go for revenge and to be better than the other person.

If there is any fault to the film it is that the female characters are grossly under developed and underused. Piper Perabo as Angier’s wife who should be Robert’s excuse for his hatred towards Borden when he is the fault of her death has only a bit of influence on the other characters once she dies in the first 10-15 minutes. Her characters presence or lack thereof should be the guiding force behind Angier’s actions but seem like just a catalyst to get the film rolling once it begins. Scarlet Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe is nothing more than window dressing in the film and the most grossly misused person. She comes off as little more than a whore that both men use and abuse whenever then feel like it. Only the exceptional Rebecca Hall as Alfred’s wife Sarah has any real weight in the film and even she is unserviced, but she steals every scene she’s in.

THE PRESTIGE is a highly imaginative film with a great over-arching story that suffers from the long running time and all the other characters that are glossed over to make room for the spectacle of the film itself. I was hoping for another MEMENTO but got something in between that and BATMAN BEGINS that just sticks in the teeth and won’t come out.