Review: The Prestige

Last night i watched Cristopher Nolan's The Prestige, a gripping, scary, clever little film.

+ Script and direction, direction and script. This is a very intelligent and gripping film and one of these rare cases when the screenplay and its realisation become one and the same thing.

+ Performances. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are appropriately scary, although I'm starting to get tired with Bale acting in every single psychotic thriller around (American Psycho, The Machinist, The Prestige etc). Try to cheer up and chill out a bit, mate. Why not work with the Farrelly brothers for a change?

+/- Michael Caine gives another subtle, measured performance and it's always difficult to tell when he's acting himself or just acting great. Which I guess is a good thing. But dangerous.

- This is it. Scarlett Johansson is doing a Paltrow. She is taking on far too many projects, she is not yet mature enough (or as talented as other actresses doing 3 films per year e.g. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore) and she's getting SA-TU-RA-TED! I was amongst the first to recognise her (gave her a supporting actress award for The Horse Whisperer when she was like 12 years old) and loved her performances in Lost in Translation and Girl With a Pearl Earring. Hence I'm most disappointed to see what could have been one of my favourite actresses choose roles that are either way beyond her age or way beyond her current acting capabilities (The Black Dahlia, The Prestige). She simply CAN NOT do the femme fatale one. She has to go away for 5 years and then do a come-back. If she continues like this then she'll just end up annoying everyone, like Gwyneth Paltrow did. Speaking of which, Paltrow can only do two modes (cry baby and smiling neurotic). It seems Johansson can only do underaged-wanna-be-hooker-trying-to-look-serious at the moment.

+ Costumes and - especially - sets were great.

- I wasn't equally impressed with the score, which often desperately tried to sound like a Hollywood flick and was generally not relevant to the time or the place of the story. Cinematography was over-self-conscious and too fake at times (e.g. foggy mountains). Not sure if this was deliberate but it didn't work very well.

Overall, this is certainly one to watch, and preferably on a cinema screen. I can guarantee that it will grip you up to the very last moment with twists that are not just there for twist's sake - the second half carefully and mastefully unveils, unpacks and eventually explains the events of the first half. And the final relevation comes at the end - just like in magic, you haven't got the complete picture until you reach Act III, also known as... The Prestige...

The film dutifully follows the narrative structure of a magician's trick leaving you stunned and wanting more.