An entertaining watch, but unfortunately thin and repetitive

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2006)

Christopher Nolan's recent films ("Memento," "Insomnia," and "Batman Begins") have all been based on the same theme: The power of obsession to increase a person's ability to create and destroy simultaneously. However, while those earlier films also explored other subjects (respectively, the importance of objective reality as opposed to subjective memory, the line between proving someone's guilt and framing him, and whether action or belief defines a person), "The Prestige" is entirely about the single theme. The biggest problem with this difference is that Nolan does not wring enough interesting aspects out of the theme to build an entire film--it only shows us the effects of the obsessions on our main characters instead of exploring the effects any further and it even includes an archetypal wise older character who has already lived it in the person of Nikola Tesla to give one of our heroes advice and give the film's themes voice in case anyone hasn't noticed being beaten over the head with it.
However, beyond the thematic (and thus intellectual) weaknesses, "The Prestige" does offer an entertaining watch. It's obvious from early on that the main purpose of the film is to provide us with a plot that will surprise the audience again and again by pulling the rug out from under it, so to speak, and it is fun to watch the attempted surprises, even though they don't in general work out. Since such attention is drawn to the effect of a magic trick in which something has to be made to disappear and then returned, both surprisingly, one has to expect something similar to happen with one of the characters at the end, and of course it does. There are also a number of points (especially the moment when Angier's wife says that he is "pretending to be someone else" because he changed his name and the moment when the two magicians see the old "Chinaman" who pretends to be crippled) where the only real point seems to be to lay out a piece of the puzzle for later and these moments unfortunately make the ending's false bottoms too obvious and easy to predict.
The acting, meanwhile, is quite good. Christian Bale's part does not require much, but the few scenes that require a stretch are performed admirably. The same can be said of both Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. However, the true star of the show is undoubtedly Hugh Jackman, who has easily the deepest and most interesting character in Angiers and performs him quite excellently. The only real complaint I have in this department is David Bowie's Nikola Tesla--even ignoring the terrible accent, Bowie performs Tesla as a simple, one-note character while the real-life Tesla at this time in his life was bordering on being a total raving lunatic. Certainly Bowie is not to blame entirely for the mischaracterization, but he could have, especially considering who he is, brought more lunacy to the performance and certainly added something to the film's picture of obsession and to his warnings about it.
On a final note, the film's score can be easily described in one word: dreadful.
So, all told, this is a fun watch for someone who just wants a fun plot that's acted well and looks decent (Nolan does have a good eye), but it doesn't offer much more for the brain or the more trained cinematic eye. A one-watch-then-throw-away film, unfortunately, from a director who has the talent to do much better. Hopefully Nolan's obsession with obsession doesn't take him down any further.