Saturday, October 21, 2006

Prestidigitationally fine.

We saw The Prestige last night. I was much looking forward to it, since it has a wonderful cast. I was not disappointed.

Some movies are just eye candy, disposable and melt in your mouth. As soon as you leave the theater, you figure out silly things that happened and find plot holes and inconsistencies.

But some movies are like puzzle boxes. You want to see them again right away, and look for nuances and twisty bits. The Prestige is like that. It's delightfully complex and full of surprises and clever setups... just like a fine magic act.

The performances are excellent from a terrific group of actors, some of whom I didn't recognize, but they were fine as well. But they are outshined by a plot that doesn't stop outdoing itself. It makes you want to watch it again just to find more hints.

Christopher Nolan, you make another film, and I'll be there watching. I am a fan.

4 comments:

Mkae said...

Thank goodness. We're going to see that this week for our monthly "company movie" and I was worried the reviews would suck.

Shocho said...

It's running in the 60s and 70s on Tomatoes and Metacritic, but I'd give it a lot better than that. Maybe 80 or so. I think this is Top 100 stuff.

DavĂ­d said...

I enjoyed the movie and thought it was very technically well done. But, like Mementon, there were story points that bothered me.

Jason said...

The only reason I could see it getting a low rating is because it's rather difficult to follow -- I know I spent much of the first hour or so just trying to place events in their proper time period. But otherwise, I thought it was great.