Run from the hype. Really. Run.

Rating: 2/10 (20 August 2016)

I watched the movie (and read the book) because IMDb reviewers slammed "Now You See Me" and said real magic movies, like The Prestige and the Illusionist, are what filmmaking is all about. Well, I can say the Prestige was better than the Illusionist. And both were pieces of crud.
Enter the adaptation of a bad book, The Prestige. The setup is simple - two rival magicians try to outdo each other, and their game escalates until people start getting seriously hurt. That should be easy enough to pull off, no? No. Here comes the sci-fi element that has absolutely nothing to do with the illusions the magicians were attempting before. Suddenly, what could have been a believable, but slow, plodding, and boring, period tale is now utter nonsense. And, the critical details about the sci-fi element are only told at the very end of the movie. At least the book let you warm up to the nonsense.
The relationship between Bale and Johansen gets exactly two lines. And that is an incredibly important part of the story! The book treats this better, and the book was awful.
This could be the movie that keeps me off of IMDb forever. You people are nuts if this is a 8/9 out of 10. The only good part of the experience was knowing I got the movie from the library, so this nonsense didn't cost me a dime.