The Cats and The Hats

Rating: 5/10 (3 August 2010)

***READ THIS ONLY IF YOU'VE SEEN THE FILM***
When compared to the other magicians movie that came out the same time, The Illusionist, this movie is just slightly better. I saw a lot of the twists because they were hinted at throughout the movie. For instance, I figured that Borden had a twin or someone who looked like him because that's what Angier had. It wasn't until about 3/4 of the way into the movie that I started thinking about a twin brother. The twist about Angier's machine was pretty clearly put out there early on when you saw field with the Cats and the Hats. Why Tesla's assistant never saw the hats out there isn't really explained. You're just to assume that Angier made the discovery first. I'll have to re-watch the film, but as far as I could tell, it was Cutter who was setting up the tricks for Angier's final shows. At least, that's what it sounded like in the courtroom setting when he accused Borden/Fallon (we don't know who's really on trial) of moving the water tank under the trap door. But isn't it odd that nobody for all those performances never noticed the tank there every performance? Not even Cutter? Heck, even those blind assistants would have heard the thrashing about in the tank as the Angier originals were drowned. And that brings me up to the murder scene. How is it that every performance, Angier drowns his original, then appears on the balcony to the crowd, but then they don't show it when Borden discovers the secret?!! Shouldn't the clone have materialized on the balcony? Even if he did suspect Borden was dressed as one of the people inspecting the machine, he wouldn't have had time to recalibrate it to shoot his clone far away and out of sight. And lastly, why go through the trouble of getting a new tank full of water every day and storing it in a basement where people could find it? If Angier was dead, you'd think Cutter would have gone to that burned out theater, looked in the basement and saw all those tanks full of clones. I mean, they were supposedly selling off Angier's belongings. As for the bodies, it would have been more practical to just take the body out and dump it somewhere far away, instead of coming up with a new water tank for every performance. That place would have reeked after a couple of days. So the movie was great to watch and I was captivated by how the whole thing was unfolding just to see if what I was anticipating was true. Sadly, when you really think about all the twists and turns that are what supposedly made this film great, the whole thing just falls apart. Otherwise, I would have given it an 8/10. But I'm giving it a pass because of the great acting.