Let's make magicians hate each other

Rating: 4/10 (19 January 2019)

The movie's plot is about rival magicians ruining each other's lives. Because the director does a poor job with character development (humanizing them, an art Spielberg is the master of) I am left to not care about them personally nor their fates. When we paused the movie almost halfway thru our comment was "so the movie is basically going to be a pissing match between two magicians. Got it."
Character development was sacrificed in order to fit in 5,000 twists and turns to get us to our climax in the end. The plot is too convoluted with science fiction and double-crossing.
You could have removed Tesla's replicating machine from the movie, focused more on the commitment to create doubles or other less forms of "mad science" and spent more time developing the characters so that feelings like rage, jealousy and revenge would actually make sense to the audience. Jackman's wife dies but we don't feel his pain. We're just shown he's in pain (yet he's sleeping with Scarlet Johansson in no time). If his pain is not truly felt, how can I understand a burning psychotic obsession to ruin another man's life at all costs?
The acting was very good so I give it a 4/10.