Product Description

Magicians in turn-of-the-century London engage in a fierce rivalry determined to out do each other leading to dire consequences.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 20-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1448 in DVD
• Brand: JACKMAN,HUGH
• Released on: 2007-02-20
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 130 minutes

Amazon.com
The Prestige attempts a hat trick by combining a ridiculously good-looking cast, a highly regarded new director, and more than one sleight of hand. Does it pull it off? Sort of. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play rival magicians who were once friends before an on-stage tragedy drove a wedge between them. While Bale's Alfred Borden is a more skilled illusionist, Jackman's Rufus Angier is the better showman; much of the film's interesting first half is their attempts to sabotage--and simultaneously, top--each other's tricks. Even with the help of a prop inventor (Michael Caine) and a comely assistant (Scarlett Johansson), Angier can't match Borden's ultimate illusion: The Transporting Man. Angier's obsession with learning Borden's trick leads him to an encounter with an eccentric inventor (David Bowie) in a second half that gets bogged down in plot loops and theatrics. Director Christopher Nolan, reuniting with his Batman Begins star Bale, demonstrates the same dark touch that hued that film, but some plot elements--without giving anything away--seem out of place with the rest of the movie. It's better to sit back and let the sometimes-clunky turns steer themselves than try to draw back the black curtain. That said, The Prestige still manages to entertain long after the magician has left the stage--a feat in itself. --Ellen A. Kim

Customer Reviews

Tedious, without gravitas
This movie is unbelievably tedious, mostly because there is nothing likable about either of the magicians (histrionically portrayed by Hugh Jackfman and Christian Bale), who compete to present the best magic trick at the turn of century. Most pleasing are Scarlett Johansson's thunderously big thighs wiggling around as she prances around on stage--she epitomizes "booty-licious."

You Want to Be Fooled
That's the tagline -- "you want to be fooled". This movie is about two men obsessed with envy, and there's no moral to the movie whatsoever. The audience is left to draw their conclusion. But at the very end, there's tag line again... You want to be fooled. Well, you were. This wasn't entertaining. It was an exercise in debauchery. It paints a picture of the human race that is horrible -- we lie, have secrets, and are basically evil. We want to be fooled, and we'll subscribe to watching a movie that has no redeeming value, then at the end we're told that the joke was on us! Well, I want my money back! I found that insulting, and the movie repulsive.

This movie should have been rated R. Children that are 13 years old might walk away from this with the wrong impression. It inspires trickery. It inspires debauchery. It illustrates how evil people can be. And at the very end it says "we took your money. You wanted to be fooled. See how good this works?"

This is the second movie with Bale that I've seen that is just plain horrible. The other is that grotesque, made for the sake of showing violence, 3:10 to Yuma, wherein a man is killed with a fork(!), and there are no heros! If Bale doesn't make a movie with a postitive statement soon, I can only come to the conclusion that the man has no higher calling than to make a dollar and is willing to do ANYTHING to make that dollar, and then takes no responsibility for the impression he's leaving on the world! He's not in it to make the world better, and NOTHING has more power to reach so many people as movies. He's wasting our time with this kind of sick 'entertainment'.

Mr. Bale, get a clue! You people who like this, think what your kid's might like! Perhaps the future has public executions in store for us if we condone this kind of 'entertainment' by allowing it to be rated PG13.

Love it! Loved it! But...
I loved this movie! I thought it was incredible. But after watching it the very first time I turned to my friend, who owned it and had seen many times, and asked "what just happened?" I had to watch it a few times to competely understand the entire movie. But I love LOST for the same reasons. I loved the twist at the end! I love when movies make you believe one thing and at the end it's something you never expected even though it was right in front of you.