Prestigious.....Not!

Rating: 4/10 (24 October 2006)

One might say that the best part of "The Prestige" is the ride to the theater. Those who say that are moronic. On the ride to the movie house you are mistakenly in the frame of mind that what you are about to see will be, in fact, entertaining and watchable. The best part of this film is the ride home for then the most arduous 2 hours spent in a theater in recent time are over. This film explains itself to you via Michael Cain's narrative of the three parts in a Magicians performance: at first an infant mewling and puking in his nurse....wait, thats something different. The First Act is called The Pledge, in which a magician displays an everyday object; act two is The Turn, in which that everyday object is made to do something extraordinary, such as disappear; and act three is The Prestige, in which the object reappears, dazzling an audience too afraid to applaud at the end of act two. The movie basically follows this pattern except The Prestige in this film is not dazzling at all, instead painfully obvious. Anyone who has seen the STTNG Episode "Second Chances" will not be in the least surprised. Those who haven't and have a brain in their head will not be. That said, my girlfriend and I were the only two people with brains in their head at the screening we attended. This auditorium was dazzled. People will come to see this film because all of the people involved are hot commodities right now. I suspect they will be disappointed.