Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

The Prestige is a psychological thriller about magicians written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the creator of movies such as Memento, Inception, and The Dark Knight Trilogy. Despite my intense hatred for Christian Bale, and I do mean that sincerely, he’s an awful actor, I think this is a fantastic movie. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you turning corners until the very end because they’re magicians. That’s what they’re supposed to do. And it’s also the kind of movie that you really have to go back and watch again, if not a couple more times, to really get everything out of it, because there’s little tidbits here and there that you’ll miss if you don’t specifically know they’re already there. 

What’s it about? In London in the 1890s, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden are magicians working for an ingeneur named John Cutter. He designs and creates equipment for magicians and stage shows. During one of the shows, Robert’s wife, Julia, fails to escape the water tank and drowns, and Angier blames Borden for it. The two become bitter rivals. Borden goes solo while Cutter joins Angier, who becomes “The Great Danton”. During one of his performances of a bullet catch trick, Angier shows up at one of Borden’s shows, pretending to be a volunteer and shoots two of Borden’s fingers off. Borden then creates his new trick “The Transported Man” in which he disappears in one door and comes out another across the stage. Unable to figure out how Borden does the trick, Angier hires a double to help him perform it. Angier is unhappy because every performance ends with him under the stage while the double, Gerald Root, is up on stage recieving the applause. Borden soon finds Root and tells him that he has manipulating power over Angier, causing him to act arrogant, ruining the act. Angier then sends his assistant, Olivia, to spy on Borden and learn how he performs The Transported Man. Olivia, however, falls in love with Borden and becomes his assistant. She helps Borden sabotage Angier’s act and Borden ends up crippling Angier. Angier confronts Olivia and she gives him a copy of Borden’s notebook, but he needs a keyword to decode it. He kidnaps and threatens to kill Borden’s engineer, Fallon, unless he gives him the keyword. “TESLA”. This takes Angier to Colorado to see Nikola Tesla who apparently created a machine for another magician. Tesla creates a machine for Angier, but instead of teleporting, it creates copies of things a short distance away. Tesla tells Angier that he should destroy the machine. Instead, Angier uses it to frame Borden for his own murder by performing The Transported Man trick when Borden is underneath the stage. It’s later revealed how each magician was performing their tricks all along: Borden was in actuality a pair of twins that were constantly switching places. While every time Angier performed The Transported Man trick, he would drown in a large tank of water underneath the stage while the copy was created on the other side of the theater. In the end, the last Angier is killed as Borden is hanged, ending the rivalry between the two magicians.  

What’s good? It’s a great psychological thriller. And not only that, but it’s shot out of sequence, so you almost have to watch it a second time to get all of it. Because you’ll miss a lot of it on the first time through. I know I did.  

What’s bad? Christian Bale. Christian Bale is the worst actor. He’s either emotionless or he has that stupid look on his face. How can you be English and sound like your accent is fake?  

The actors? Michael Caine is a superior actor and he proves it again with this movie. Hugh Jackman does a fabulous job as well. I’m not a big Hugh Jackman fan, but credit where credit is due. Rebecca Hall stands out as well. The girl who plays Sarah, Borden’s wife. She does really well in this movie.  

The effects? It IS a movie about magicians… You won’t be disappointed in the special effects. You should expect to be dazzled and amazed by feats of wonder… 

He’s surprised the whole town had electricity. It’s 1890, so I guess it is a little more spectacular for an entire town in Colorado to have electricity than it would be today… 

There’s a big sign on the fence. There’s literally a giant sign on the fence that says “danger” and “do not touch” and he walks up and grabs a hold of it anyway. Like, what did you expect to happen? There are signs with lightning bolts on it attached to the fence. Didn’t you take that to mean anything? 

He doesn’t know which knot he tied. The reason Borden doesn’t know which knot he tied is because he wasn’t the one who tied the knot. It was Fallon that tied the knot. The night that Julia died was one of the nights that Borden was Fallon and Fallon was Borden.  

He shot his fingers off. Angier could’ve killed Borden, but he didn’t. He shot him in the hand. Why didn’t he just kill him? 

Where’s he getting all these birds? Where are all these birds coming from? There’s an endless supply of birds for magicians to do whatever with. And apparently, they just discard them like empty beer cans. 

How do you not notice a magician missing fingers? I mean, that takes some balls, cutting fingers off? Talk about married to your profession? You’re really going all in, there. That’s really living the lie.  

He buried Fallon alive. Fallon wouldn’t talk, which really says something about Fallon, because they were threatening to kill him, so they buried him alive, which really says something about Angier, too. 

Christian Bale is still a terrible actor. I don’t care what anybody says. I have no respect for Christian Bale as an actor. I know he was Batman. I’ve seen the other things he’s done. I don’t know what it is about Christian Bale. He just rubs me the wrong way… 

Tesla tells Angier not to use the machine HE built. When somebody tells you not to use the machine that THEY built, you probably shouldn’t use it. That’s all. It’s probably not a good idea. They probably know more about it than you do. They probably know WHY you shouldn’t use it. They probably know WHY it’s not a good idea. They probably have a good idea of what could go wrong IF you did use it. 

The bird trick. That little boy saw through that bird trick right away, and he was none too happy about it. Because apparently, he didn’t like seeing birds get squished.  

Tesla asks Angier if he’s considered the cost. Tesla asks Angier if he’s considered the cost of making the machine, and Angier says he has plenty of money. And Tesla replies “I’m not talking about the expense. I’m talking about the cost…” That’s more of a philosophical question. 

Angier’s too greedy to share the prestige with Root. Angier’s personality wouldn’t allow him to share the limelight with another person. He wanted to be the one receiving the applause at the end instead of being under the stage. That’s why he had to find another way to perform the trick. Borden sabotaging the act just made them do it earlier.  

The constant “one-upsmanship”. Every time each of them did something, the other had to do something in return until there were no more safeguards to fall back on. No more plans left to unfurl. It was literally a “last man standing” situation. 

He didn’t want to tell Sarah what he’d lost. At the table in the restaurant, Borden didn’t want to tell Sarah what he’d almost lost because what he’d almost lost was Fallon. And that would’ve revealed the secret to her.  

I didn’t fully grasp the whole concept on the first watch through. I didn’t get the idea of all the hats and the clones and two cats the first time I watched it. I guess it didn’t really click until I watched it a second time and I was thinking about it AS I was watching it.  

You never know which one is Borden and which one is Fallon. Borden and Fallon are constantly switching places, so you never know which one is which. But they’re not the same people, so they can’t have the same personalities. That’s why Borden seems like such a conflicted person. Because he’s two people.  

Sarah hung herself because she found out how the trick worked. When Sarah realized she was really in love with literally two people, it drove her crazy to the point that she couldn’t take it anymore. And in a world of magic, when you look behind the curtain, the show’s over… 

How many tanks with bodies had they gotten rid of so far? Cutter and Angier were booked for 100 shows in that theater. How many had they done so far? How many tanks with bodies had they gotten rid of already? It looked like they had rows already lined up in that basement. The last shot was a tank with a body of one of the Angier clones in it. Were they just collecting in there? 

It’s Fallon that kills the last Angier clone. Borden is dead. And Fallon kills the last Angier clone. The magician’s rivalry is technically over now. The movie should theoretically be ended with a “Ta-Da!!” 

So, yeah. Go and see The Prestige. With the exception of Christian Bale, it’s definitely worth seeing. It’s easily one of Christopher Nolan’s better films. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…