Eye Candy #463 - "The Prestige"

The Prestige: Read this book a few weeks back in preparation for this movie. It’s the story of two magicians in the late 19th-early 20th century England whose rivalry goes beyond just the professional. This is the 4th major film outing for director Christopher Nolan, who gave us “Memento” and “Batman Begins”.  Borden (Christian Bale) and Angier (Hugh Jackman) are journeyman magicians under the same stage magician who have a falling out over a trick gone horribly, horribly wrong (resulting in the death of one of the participants). They become competitors, each seeking to find the secret of the others tricks and preventing the other from being successful, including acts of sabotage and violence. But the more we learn about each magician, the more answered questions about who they are come up until the final 15 minutes of the film when all is fairly well revealed and we learn more about who each man really is.  Bale and Jackman are both excellent, with a solid supporting cast in Michael Caine as Jackman’s “engineer” (the designer of his stagecraft), Scarlett Johansson as the love interest of both men, and David Bowie in a great turn as Nicola Tesla (he does an excellent; you hardly recognize him as Bowie…even with the different colored eyes). Throw in Andy Serkis and Roger Rees, and you've got an extremely talented group of people on screen.  There are quite a few changes from the book upon which the film is based. For one, a framing sequence involving descendants of both men in the present day is the device the book uses to retell each man’s life and passion/obsession in the other. Also, the electricity device created by Tesla and used by Angier onstage works somewhat differently than in the book. There were several other changes that I won't elaborate here (they have to do with the fate of both men in the book, parts of which were changed significantly). I don’t think that any of these changes took away from the story shown in the film (there were some pretty weak parts of the book, particularly in the contemporary pieces).  An all-around well-made, watchable film.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”