Ben Oliver

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film

The Prestige

The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.
23 April 2014

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale team up with Christopher Nolan to make this illusion-based thriller. Two magicians are performing the same trick as each other. When Jackman’s character can’t figure out how Bale is doing his, he becomes obsessed with either finding out the truth, or bettering him.

This is my second viewing and it’s very much a one trick pony. I realise this might be an obvious thing to say about a film built around a twist, but quite often it’s worth re-watching such movies to catch things one might have missed whilst being distracted by the plot. Not so here. Nolan seems to be on auto-pilot shooting this, a trait that only really comes to light second time around.

Talking of auto-pilot, Jackman is cruising a bit here along with Michael Caine doing Alfred from Batman again. Scarlett Johansson isn’t even on board it seems (why they felt the need to give her an accent beats me). Christian Bale isn’t bad though and I’m always a fan of Rebecca Hall, she’s yet to put in a duff performance I think.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did first time around, but take this as a word of warning; The Prestige yields nothing further on second viewing. As they say, once you know how it’s done…