My Review of "The Prestige"

The Prestige is a bit of an older movie that came out in 2006. You would never thought this movie about magicians get so deep into our own personal demons. The story is told in an unorthodox kind of way but in the everything oddly makes sense.

The movie starts off with the introduction of a magic show. It's basically the catalyst that starts off the conflict. We have a veteran magician, his assistant, his magic engineer and two magician proteges. They are all carrying out a dangerous magic trick that involves escaping a water tank.

We focus on the two proteges Robert and Alfred. Robert so happens to be married to the magician's assistant. They're deeply in love and Robert wants to eventually be a fully fledged magician of his own. He's got the showmanship of a magician but he lacks the skills and ingenuity of Alfred.

Alfred on the other hand is a great magician. He can spot things a mile away and he comes up with things on his own. Unfortunately he's not one to play up the drama when displaying his tricks. So you can obviously see two polar opposites in the direction of their magic.

The magic trick in the very beginning goes awry and there is an unfortunate incident that causes a rift between the two proteges. They hate each other and have built an unhealthy sense of competition against one another.

As the movie proceeds we see them one upping each other not in tricks but ways of sabotaging each other. That is until Alfred creates a great trick that Robert can't quite understand. Robert's engineer Cutter tries to explain to him how it works but Robert becomes obsessed with the trick.

Both their obsessions with one another become quite dark and dangerous. There are a number of times each of them could have killed one another. This movie kind of goes all over the place as it one ups itself in wackier and wackier scenarios. Eventually everything goes into the bizarre and it's fun to watch them go through this process.

This movie not only talks about egos and obsession but it also dives into wonder and secrets. They constantly talk about the joys of magic. The wonderment and amazement it brings to the audience but what really makes them so excited about it? Is it the secret or is it that their confusion as how it happened?

They also make you start to wonder what their priorities were. At some points they live very great lives but they're ready to risk it all for their art. It's kind of crazy but I guess artists will be artists. A rational person would see that they should have been content with themselves and not continue on with their unhealthy obsessions.

It's also told in a really weird manner. The movie jumps back and forth in time. We go to the future the past and the present constantly. Surprisingly it somehow works even though they don't have any captions to indicate when they are referring to. We just understand the situations they're talking about as it all has a reference point to the catalyst in the very beginning of the movie.

I haven't seen this movie in a long time so it was fun to watch this one again because I was hazy on the ending. This is a movie you can watch over and over because they sprinkled the clues all over the movie for the audience to understand how it ends. Second viewing is especially fun because you can spot all the clues that you may have missed in the first viewing.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. There's a lot of fun with it even though it goes into the bizarre closer to the end of the movie. The twists and turns will keep you at the edge of your seat on your first viewing. You'll be closely watching for clues in any subsequent viewing. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. Really good movie but there are certain points where I thought it to be quite irrational.