Movie Review: The Prestige (The other magician movie)

After seeing and enjoying The Illusionist, we decided to take a turn at the other magician movie out right now, The Prestige.

Where The Illusionist is a story of enduring love, The Prestige is a story of enduring revenge. This is a strange tale of ratcheting competitiveness and vindictiveness mixed with a smidgeon of science fiction that isn't pleasant to watch despite the top notch cast that includes Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as friends that turn vengeful rivals, Michael Caine, Piper Perabo, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie. There's also nice supporting work by lots of familiar faces like Edward Hibbert (Gil Chesterton on Frasier) and Daniel Davis (Niles on The Nanny). The themes, oft repeated, are that successful magic requires "getting your hands dirty" and obsession only leads to disaster. If you like twisty plots and you don't mind dark themes, get this. I guarantee you will not figure out the ending ahead of time. It may take you a while to figure it out after the last scene has played.

I give high marks for the unusual plot and beautiful period costumes/scenery but the overall movie only 2 out of 4 jujubees because I didn't enjoy it so much as watch it like I'd watch an accident unfolding.