a huge let-down

Rating: 4/10 (28 February 2007)

Coming from the director of 2 gripping movies in Memento and Batman begins,"The Prestige" is a complete let-down.The story line is very thin and plot revealed at the end makes it look like a joke.It might precisely been his intention-to explain ow ludicrously simple magic tricks are-but then I wouldn't want to spending 2.5 hours of completely non-sensical attempts of sabotage(some of them had me in guffaws at the ridiculous stupidity of it all)only to find I was being taken for a ride all along. I can't help feeling he has tried to make a simple narrative needlessly complex trying to give psychological connotations to the entire story, and "going back and forth in time" stuff-which was completely unnecessary. Clearly he's suffering from "Memento" hangovers. At least,a genuine attempt at character development would have ensured that the magicians mind connected with the audience but sadly that was not to be.At times, I wondered if I was watching a comedy movie gone wrong or genuinely made to go wrong.Performances too are ordinary.Only thing that saves the movie are the few moments of good direction,good visuals and not to forget,the magic tricks that are demystified!