A beautiful period piece, nearly ruined by sloppy plotting

Rating: 7/10 (11 November 2006)

If I were to judge this movie just on the quality of the acting and the beauty of the photography, costumes, set design, and even 90% of the dialog, this would get 9 stars. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to people who go to the movies to see a spectacular looking period piece. Jackman and Bale do superb jobs as the centerpieces of the film's story, the supporting case is dead on (including Michael Caine - which didn't surprise me - and David Bowie - which did).
But the ambitious screenplay is so riddled with sloppy plotting and unfair plot devices that it almost sinks the film.
I can appreciate the difficulty of what Nolan and Nolan are trying to pull off here, and I am familiar with the work of Christopher Priest (who wrote the novel the screenplay is based on). But, simply put, the screenplay cheats like a bastard. It promises us an amazingly clever game of cat-and-mouse between two gifted and obsessive geniuses. It promises us a dazzling resolution which will astound us with its deviousness and cause us to slap our foreheads in delight, because we "should have seen it coming". (Kind of like some of the old "Columbo" episodes).
***GENERAL SPOILERS FOLLOW***
Instead it presents an out-of-left-field plot development that is completely unjustified by what went before, lies to us about the premises of another plot device that it then uses to drive the entire latter portion of the movie, and presents us with a couple of protagonists who are morally repellent and seemingly dumber than rocks.
***DETAILED SPOILERS FOLLOW****
I don't want to waste your time (and mine) detailing all the ways the screenplay fouls up, but I will mention a couple.
1) If Angier is so devastated by his wife's death in the stage accident early in the movie (as a result of Bordon's "carelessness" in tying the knots), and has such a need for vengeance, it seems to be that he ought to save at least SOME of his wrath for his friend Cutter, who designed the water tank in the first place. How hard would it have been to make one of the glass sides in the water tank thin enough (say, the one in the back that the audience couldn't see directly) so that it could be broken with one swing of a sledge in an emergency? How hard would it have been to TEST the tank when it was full to see how long it actually took to break it? For that matter, how hard would it have been to train Angier's wife to hold her breath for 3 minutes - a feat any stage magician and illusionist learns very early in his career? Any of these precautions would have saved the women's life when things went wrong, yet Angier blames Borden alone.
2) Early on, trying to solve the puzzle of Borden's great trick "The Transported Man", Angier and Cutter discard the possibility that Borden is using a look-a-like because Angier's new assistant claims that the "double" also has mutilated fingers, and no double could duplicate Borden's mutilated fingers.
That's not valid reasoning. Times back then were tough enough that people routinely mutilated themselves so they could pass as cripples to beg for money, and women prostituted themselves for small change. Plenty of people back then (and even now) would jump at the chance to trade two fingers for a steady income and financial security.
OK, I'll buy it if the film insists...these are supposed to be the smartest guys in their field, after all...
BUT: What do you know! It turns out that Borden not only uses a look-a-like after all, he has a TWIN who submitted to having his fingers mutilated! I got so angry when I saw this that I nearly walked out of the theater.
That's cheating - it's not clever and magician-like at all....it's just the act of an obsessive creep who doesn't have the skill or the wit to live up to the art of deception and misdirection that is supposed to be the stage magician's reason for being. Most of all, it doesn't live up to the premise that drove the latter half of the screenplay - that he's not using a double because a double wouldn't have mutilated fingers.
Similarly, Angier spends years and a fortune (where'd the money come from? The movie mostly shows us performances that end in disaster!) trying to solve Borden's "Transported Man" trick...instead of actually simply trying to come up with a BETTER trick. The guy is supposed to be this "brilliant" stage magician, and yet all he can do is copy another guy's act?? Does ANYone buy this?
I've just scratched the surface here: Problems and psychological inconsistencies and morally repulsive actions riddle the movie from beginning to end...not the least of which
***BIG SPOILER FOLLOWS!****
is when the Nolan brothers choose to pull a freak science fiction plot device out of nowhere in what was an interesting period mystery piece and character study. Wait a minute - the whole premise of the film is the secrecy and mystery of illusion and stagecraft. To pull a trick off with HARD SCIENCE (no matter how impressive) is to basically say, "Nope, these characters suck, and we aren't smart enough to make our premise work. Sorry, hope you like the new direction!!"
If the acting weren't so good, if most of the dialog wasn't so spot on, if the movie didn't look so brilliant, I'd slam "The Prestige" non stop to everyone I know. And yet I STILL like it enough to rank it as a "7" when the plot barely merits a "4". As it is, I have to advise the first time viewer to suspend his critical thinking facilities and just drink in the mood.