Excellent production with a broken plot contract

Rating: 6/10 (7 April 2020)

The Prestige is a superb period mood piece with outstanding cinematography, excellent acting, great dialogue - and a plot that is a huge let down.
We are told that every magic trick consists of three parts: the Pledge, that sets the stage and seemingly makes any trickery impossible, the Turn, where the trick happens, and the Prestige, where it all comes together to amaze and baffle the audience. The Prestige delivers a zinger of a Pledge: a vividly imagined Victorian London, a mysterious death, and two young genius friends turned bitter rivals - and an impossible piece of stage magic on which it all hinges. It all plays out splendidly with fantastic performances by both lead and supporting actors (with the exception of David Bowie's poorly conceived Nikola Tesla, and Scarlett Johansson, while great, is wasted on a role that never goes anywhere).
But The Prestige lacks the Prestige. After setting the expectations high for a fiendishly clever reveal, the entire soufflÃ© collapses as the finish relies on not one but two cop-outs that break the contract between storyteller and audience.
All in all, The Prestige is immensely enjoyable for its acting, dialogue and cinematography for close to two hours, despite some plot weaknesses and occasional slow pacing, and equally immensely frustrating as the expectations for a clever reveal are not so much subverted as simply betrayed.
Had as much effort been put into the plot as into the production, The Prestige might have been a masterpiece. As it is, it is still a very good film as long as you don't invest too much in the plot reveal.