The Prestige is a Magical piece.

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2010)

The Prestige is a movie about two magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Agnier (Hugh Jackman) work as apprentices to Cutter (Michael Caine). During their work for him, one of the tricks suffers a terrible accident and Agnier develops an obsession for being better than Borden. When Borden develops a trick that Agnier can't figure out, things continue to escalate until both men are at each others throats.
This movie is great. It plays with the time line and actually starts at the death of Robert Agnier. The viewpoint shifts between Borden and Agnier to keep you involved with both men, and while the movie goes through both men manage to become ambiguously protagonist and antagonist. The movie is a mystery, when the magicians develop tricks, you aren't told how they are doing their tricks right away. In a way, its like seeing a magic show while seeing the movie. The movie is filled with twists that keep you on the edge of your seat, though near the end it can seem like its getting dragged out a bit, you eventually catch up to the present events taking place and the actual ending to the story.
Even though this is a great movie, its not without its flaws. Near the start in particular, it was hard to tell what was going on exactly because of the non-linear time line that the movie uses to tell the story. You might be confused a little bit on the characters and what all is going on for a good part of the opening, but it clears up quick enough, and maybe its just me. There's also a bit of a problem with the female characters. The main female characters, Borden's wife (Rebecca Hall) and the stagehand secondary love interest (Scarlett Johanson), manage to garner attention and seem to be written to be really important to the plot of the movie. Unfortunately, this just isn't realized very well, and by the end of the movie its questionable if they even had to be there in the first place, or if they were just put on to the set to be eye candy.
Overall, The Prestige is a great movie, perfectly done and well performed. I haven't read the novel (yet) and therefore can't comment on how well it did with the source material, but from a basic movie stand point, it is very exciting, and a movie you should see, even if it doesn't take highest priority.
8.5 out of 10.