Good acting, poor production

Rating: 5/10 (21 October 2006)

I'll keep this short and to the point: The Prestige is an interesting story with pretty decent acting, but could have been much better were a little more thought put into post-production. Both Bale and Jackman played their parts quite well, but the flip-flopping of scenes between past and present were ambiguous at best and nearly every twist was foreseeable (if not obvious) long before it was discovered by the characters. For a movie about two magicians I would've expected the ending to reveal a secret I wasn't anticipating the entire second half, which for obvious reasons made the last hour drag on waiting for the inevitable. In short, wait for the DVD. It certainly isn't worth paying $10 at the theater, for the acting is decent but not outstanding, the magic marginal, and the eventual revealing fairly obvious. It is less a matter of "who and how" and more a matter of "when" they'll finally tell you what you've suspected since the first 45 minutes.