Mystifying modern film-making at it's very best!

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2007)

The Prestige is quality modern film-making at its very best. Christopher Nolan has proved himself to be a director to watch after his successful reinvention of the Batman series, and now this film; different in theme and tone to Batman, and for my money, much better! The brilliance of this film comes from many different areas - the acting performances and the professionalism of the film shown throughout go a long way towards ensuring that The Prestige is an excellent film, but really it is the story that makes this one stand out. The film is based on a novel by Christopher Priest and focuses on magicians in nineteenth century London. Robert Angier and Alfred Borden are magicians and friends working as assistants to another successful magician. Their friendship turns sour, however, when Alfred makes a mistake that leads to the death of Robert's girlfriend on stage. This leads to a fierce rivalry between the two magicians, and after each one sabotages the others' magic show; the rivalry takes a new turn as they battle to see who can carry out the greatest magic trick...
The plot doesn't develop linearly, rather Christopher Nolan chops and changes the exact point in the story where the film is running from, and this works really well as everything always feels fresh and inventive and Christopher Nolan is clearly a director capable of handling this sort of feat. The Prestige features an all star cast, and all perform excellently. The male leads are obviously the main standout. Christian Bale has really proved what a great actor he can be over the past couple of years, and his performance here still works despite the fact that he sounds a lot like Grant Mitchell from Eastenders. Hugh Jackman is good also and he gets to show more of himself than he did in the X-Men films, while the likes of Michael Caine and David Bowie fill out the supporting cast. The cinematography on display is absolutely fantastic, and the film does an extremely good job of recreating nineteenth century London. The special effects are good also, and the scenes involving Tesla's machine are all standouts. It all boils down to a terrific and suitably mystifying conclusion and overall, I really recommend that everyone takes the time to see this film. The Prestige really is one of the best modern films I've seen in years.