Saturday 25 November 2006

Review: The Prestige



Director: Christopher Nolan
Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson

An overall interesting film by Christopher Nolan, director of Memento and Batman Begins, about 2 rival magicians trying their vicious best to outdo each other and come out tops. While the storyline is simple, the editing is a bit unusual, which is no surprise coming from the director of Memento. There are lots of flashbacks, and more flashbacks within those flashbacks, which at first do make you somewhat confused, but adds to the fascination of the film and at least stops you from dozing off!



What does intrigue me, not only in this film but many others, is why producers can't just cast Americans in American roles, and English in English roles, rather than torture our ears with horrid fake OTT accents. For example, The Prestige:

1. Hugh Jackman (Aussie) doing American
2. Scarlett Johansson (American) doing English
3. Andy Serkis (English) doing American
4. David Bowie (English) doing East European (Serbian to be exact, but who cares!)

Anyway, good film. Very gothic, with a plot that kicks dirt in the face of linearity. Shame about the last act though, felt cheated a bit when the film came up with something out of fantasy that cannot be explained. Took away a lot of the "magic" of the film, so to speak.

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