A masterpiece - and Morgan Shepard is in it, too!

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2007)

This movie was a big surprise for me. I expected some kind of mystery thriller, but this movie was for more sophisticated as I thought it would be.
First of all is the complex way it is narrated, with a narrator at the beginning and the end, but mostly a visual presentation of a diary that also takes into account another diary read by the owner of the first diary - and the owner of the second diary reads the first diary in jail! That's not the usual sweet and simple Hollywood brain candy, and it's obvious at this point that the movie must be based on a clever novel. That's probably also were the script's meditations on the nature of show magic come from. The ending will be a big, big revelation, but all the loose strands come together in a very ironic climax.
Photography is good, if somewhat gloomy, fitting the plot, of course. But it's a wonderful break from the artificial and computer game like looking photography often found in Hollywood movies today.
Acting is great overall, that's all there is to say. David Bowie is wonderful as the somewhat sinister, faustian inventor Tesla. And, of course, I was so surprised when I saw Morgan Shepard in his small but wonderful part! He's a magnificent and distinguished actor who mostly gets small parts, which is quite a shame. He was also in Ridley Scott's Duellists or the Seaquest TV serial.
Anyway, the worst part of the movie is the score: while this bland and repetitive piece of music works OK in the movie (you don't hear much of it), it doesn't survive the light of day on a CD. That's no big surprise, though, when a score is "produced" by Hans Zimmer, that overrated wannabe score composer.