Could Have Been Better

Rating: 7/10 (24 October 2006)

"The Prestige" has potential, but fails to fully reach it.
The story follows two budding illusionists, Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and a bitter rivalry that ensues after a disheartening tragedy.
The Angier, Borden, Cutter (Michael Caine) and Angier's wife Julia (Piper Perabo) are stagehands for a magic act. A tragedy that ends out taking the life of Julia is to be blamed on Borden and Angier begins to become full of rage.
From then on, the movie follows them as they open their own magic acts and try and out-do each other. Cutter joining Angier and bringing along a helper named Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) as Angier runs his own magic show with his stagehand (His name escapes me at the moment, and I can't find a credit for him) Borden pulls off a magic trick that has Angier scratching his head. He asks his new found love, Olivia, to join Borden and be a spy. The movie continues to take you one way and then turn you another. Angier turns to a wizard in order to help him create something that will put Borden out of business. We're not quite sure what it does for awhile, but we know it's not a "Trick" and we also don't know what exactly is going on since the movie keeps jumping back and forth between present day, a very long time ago, a short time ago, a long time ago again, etc.
And if you are wondering "Hey, whatever happened to ScarJo?" I am asking the same question. She just kind of disappears.
It all comes together in the end and everything is explained, but it's almost not worth the trouble of being so confused the rest of the time.
Their are plenty of twists, but I was able to call all of them before they happened. Not tooting my own horn, just letting you know that I found the twists somewhat predictable. It was a good movie, I'm sorry if I'm acting like it's not, but it's because I know it could have been so much better.