One rabbit short of a hat trick

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2008)

I think most of the reviews here cover the finer points of this film. Yes, it's a terrific story, with a fantastic cast, with Christian Bale once again giving a flawless performance. Yes, the direction is superb, and further confirms Christopher Nolan as a master of his art. Yes, it's a great film, and well worth a couple of hours of anyone's time.
However, two things bugged me about it, which I feel compelled to warn others about. The first problem was Scarlett Johansson. I don't particularly rate her as an actress anyway, but here she's really bad. How other people can suggest she gives a solid performance must surely mean 'solid' as in 'stiff' (as in 'wooden'). Yes, she's pretty, but she's also pretty unconvincing and her English accent, while an admirable attempt, still falls some way short.
The other thing that threatened to spoil my enjoyment of The Prestige was the utterly bizarre decision to cast David Bowie as Nicolas Tesla. At the best of times, he's a mediocre actor. On a positive note, this was one of those times, so he was at the top of his game, in a sense. Sadly, when he's on form, he's still crap, and his accent was nothing short of hilarious. I'm not sure what it was meant to be, but it sounded like the voice Ricky Gervais does at the start of his 'Animals' show - a kind of weird French, German, via North London affair.
There was one other thing that bothered me, which is the stuff about Hugh Jackman's 'machine'. It's totally ridiculous and doesn't fit with the tone of the film at all. I won't say any more than that, as I don't want to add any spoilers.
In spite of these issues though, the rest of The Prestige is so good it's easily worth eight out of ten.