I didn't buy Tesla

Rating: 5/10 (29 December 2006)

Acting and directing are subjective issues. Half the readers here are already rolling out the Academy Award red carpet for Nolan and Bale while the other half have set the phrase "cardboard carachters" as F buttons in their keyboards.
The problem with this film is not the acting or the directing. Personally, I enjoyed both immensely. Alas, the movie is absolutely flawed by one and only one thing which I will call The Tesla fiasco.
Only 6 or 7 reviewers out of 420 point out that this Deus ex machina is completely unacceptable for anyone who has not been in a coma for the last 100 years. Only two years ago, a verified teleportation of atoms took place, and mankind has a lot more to go before Dan Simmon's farcasters are built all over the universe. So, a teleporting/telecloning device (and a flexible one, cats, hats, magicians)existed in the 19th century? What a letdown.
Now, magic has always trusted and followed science to produce better and more wonderful tricks. Real magic uses real science. So, the Tesla machine, since it is science should definitely be a magician's secret weapon. But it is not science of the 1890's. It may be science of the 2030's, who knows. If, by a cocmic coincidence I had met Nolan, let's say, 3 years ago, full of enthusiasm about adapting a not so successful book to the big screen, I would have given him only one advice :
Don't go Victorian.
Set the film in NOW. Shoot it in US. Seek locations where quantum teleportation experiments take place. It would be far more dramatic, far more believable, and it would give you the extra little something that attracts critics and audiences alike. You could have won the world with this one and all you had to lose would be the Victorian costumes.