The Prestige

I was blown away by this movie. It is far & away the best I've seen all year. Every single actor does a bang-up job, the story is suspenseful & surprising, & the cinematography is gorgeous. There are lots of twists in the plot & the script is so well-written that it just seems organic & not annoying, as it very well could have been. Basically it is about 2 magicians, Angier (Hugh Jackman) & Borden (Christian Bale). For reasons I won't give away, they become archrivals. They keep messing with each other, each time escalating the destruction, although they both know they have got to stop. Unfortunately, neither can, & there are several tragedies along the way. The dénouement was a nailbiter & a complete surprise.

Scarlett Johansson & Piper Perabo are wonderful as supporting actresses. The costume & makeup department made them absolutely beautiful. David Bowie also does a surprisingly good job as Nikola Tesla, accent & all. It was so exciting to watch Angier & Borden go back & forth, one-upping each other, losing all sense of proportion in their obsession to beat the other. The director, Christopher Nolan, perfected his backwards technique for this film. He starts with the end & goes back to explain it, jumping around a bit along the way, but much less confusingly than in Memento. The story definitely demands attention but at the end I pretty much understood everything that happened. I don't know how much more I can say without giving away plot twists so - go see it! It's fantastic!