Less adventurous than Memento, but plenty of fun

Rating: 8/10 (25 November 2006)

"Step right up folks, for the next entertaining and annoying confection from the clever Nolan brothers, who make a perfectly credible plot disappear before your very eyes and send you out of the theatre with a warm glow but also with a vague feeling you've been had." Actually I think my anonymous sideshow barker is being a bit harsh, for this particular confection, viewed as sheer entertainment, has a lot going for it. . First, there are two strong performances from Hugh Jackman, and Christian Bale as the two dueling magicians (or is it illusionists?), Robert Angier and Alfred Borden. Then there's a faultless supporting performance as Michael Caine, in wise old buffer mode, as Cutter, the trick deviser. Then there's the invocation of the late Victorian/Edwardian atmosphere, when society seemed to be so straitlaced and stratified, yet unimaginable change was already on its way. Lastly, there's the paradox that even though, especially via Cutter, we get to see the magic business from the inside, what's really going on is concealed until the end  and possibly beyond.
This is a long movie - over 120 minutes and I did get a little restless at times. The intensity of the rivalry between the male leads tends to put their women in the shade, and Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall were rather overshadowed (though Rebecca does the better of the two). Although the Tesla sub-plot was interesting, and David Bowie was a suitably cagey Tesla (the real-life electrical inventor), the leap into rather fuzzy sci-fi was rather out of sympathy with the main themes of the picture, putting on illusions and getting revenge. Still without Tesla there would not have been Andy Serkis's gem of a performance as his sidekick Alley.
As in "Memento" where the story was essentially presented backwards, Christopher Nolan plays around with the time-frame, but much more conventionally. Thus the movie opens with Borden in jail after being convicted of Angier's murder, but of course that is not the end of the story. The storyline is not a challenge until the end when rather too much is revealed at once. Still, the stars are easy to watch and the music-hall atmosphere beautifully evoked. Whether or not Tesla could do remarkable things with black cats and top hats, not to mention people, is beside the point; the story here is powered by good old human passion.