The Prestige

IMDB

Sometimes good films come almost out of nowhere. When I went to see School for Scoundrels, a preview for The Prestige was shown. I had never heard of it before, but the mood of the preview and the cast put it on the must show list. To my pleasant surprise the film opened this week, so I slipped out to watch it as soon as I could.

There were three main draws to the cast. The first was Christian Bale. This guy is somebody who I have enjoyed watching since American Psycho, and most recently he showed how Batman should be done. Next up was my fellow countryman Hugh Jackman, who really made his name for himself in my book with his portrayal of Wolverine. And the presence of Michael Caine just sweetens the deal – this guy has been pumping out great celluloid for years, with classics such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Goldmember and Secondhand Lions just to name some highlights. The film also features Piper Perabo (remember Coyote Ugly?), Scarlett Johansson (very good in The Island, I thought), David Bowie (I did not recognize him when I saw him on screen, unlike his appearance in Zoolander) and Andy Serkis (most people remember him rendered rather than filmed).

Christopher Nolan wrote the screenplay (along with his brother Jonathan) and directed the film. I like his style of film-making – Memento and Batman Begins were both extremely well made, with fantastic atmosphere and electric tension at times. Seeing this has inspired me to see Insomnia, which I had previously avoided based on an ignorance of who was responsible for it.

One comparison which some people will not help making is to The Illusionist, which also had magic as a thematic element and was also a period piece set in old Europe. After seeing and thoroughly enjoying both films, I can safely say that the similarities are very superficial. I think that The Illusionist is more of a story about romantic rivalry, where The Prestige is a story about professional rivalry. This fundamental difference in the story drives the end result to be constructed very differently.

The film is about two magicians, Rupert (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred (Christian Bale) who start out together under the tutelage of Cutter (Michael Caine). Some people have painted the story as the two being friends that become rivals, but I would more accurately characterize it as aquantances who become rivals. There is an element of distrust between them even at the beginning of the film, which blossoms into a very passionate hatred by the time the film is done. Rupert and Alfred eventually create careers of their own, attempting to sabotage each other whenever they can and learn the secrets of each other’s magic. This brings Rupert all the way to Colorado (a long way, considering things are set in late 19th century London) to meet with Nikola Tesla in an attempt to construct the ultimate act.

The film does have a bit of a twist to it, and I have read some other commentary on this. I think that this film is best enjoyed by watching it without reading too much about the twist. Some people have commented that they needed a second viewing to fully see what was going on, and some people leaving the cinema at the same time as me seemed to not understand what was happening. Personally, I had suspicions about what was going on about halfway through. The story leaves a lot of hints here and there, and there are many layers to “the trick” in this film, so the details of what was happening were tough to tell until the very end. The way that the layers are folded onto one another and the way that you can cast back to earlier moments of the film to see what their significance was is very satisfying.

I think that this is one of the best films that I have seen recently. The intensity of the characters is amazing, and the two protagonists bristle with energy throughout the whole affair. Some people have said that they find the characters shallow, but I think that they show the nature of obsessive personalities very accurately. If you don’t have an obsessive personality yourself or don’t know somebody who has, then you might not agree, but otherwise you will know what I mean when you see it.

The atmosphere of the film is great. The two landscapes are London and Colorado Springs, and both are brought to life with that gritty realism that I love (although things look suspiciously cleaner than they would at that time period, but the purpose of things is to entertain, not educate). Sometimes the storyline weaves between the past and the present in a way that does not preserve clarity, but I am unsure if this was a desirable trait or a subtle flaw in the presentation.

This was a very riveting film, especially considering the two plus hours of content. Pretty much everything, from the casting, the acting, the story, the cinematography, the editing, the special effects – is top notch and blended together superbly to create a unique film that defies classification into a generic genre. All that I can add is to implore you to watch it, hopefully without some less considerate reviewer ruining it for you.

The Covenant

IMDB

I decided to watch this film because the premise looked interesting. The backstory to the film is that there were five families in Essex county with supernatural powers that are somehow hereditary, and one of the families was banished. The other four families continued to live in the area, thinking that they are the only ones left. Then one day, a member of the fifth family returns…..

From watching the preview and the opening few minutes, this is obviously a ‘teen’ film. All of the main characters were people that seemed somewhat familiar, but this film was their first. I think that seeing so many films set in high schools and colleges gives a feeling of familiarity to these films. Initially, some of the corny dialog and the setup in the first few scenes made me worry about the film a little. But the darker elements of the film came into play fairly quickly, and the predictable nature of the film melted away a lot.

The setting is Massachusetts in autumn, and the atmospere is developed throughout the film very well. There is the usual suspension of disbelief required in watching the actors. They all played their parts nicely, but none of them looked remotely like people in high school, which is where I think they were meant to be. The female lead, Laura Ramsey, turns 24 this year as an example (according to IMDB). The special effects are very good, but not unusually so for this day and age.

I think that the film could have done with more back story to develop things. Throughout the film the way that the magic works, how people came to have the powers, what people have done with them through the ages, etc are not really explained in detail. This feels intentional, like the mystery surrounding the powers is something that the audience should feel, but it also creates the feeling that rules are being made up as you go along. I think that the best fantasy and science fiction universes have the quality of explaining a lot of the restrictions and rules of the universe early on and demonstrating the ramifications of that throughout the story. I think that this gives an immersive quality to the fiction, whereas introducing new rules constantly breaks the illusion.

The storyline put the protagonist into a pickle that did make me curious about how he would get out of it, but I don’t think that I was wondering if he would get out of it. I don’t know why, but the film never had the feeling that it would kill people off. Not that I like to watch people die, but it does make things feel less predictable when characters die. In the end, the ending was one of the possibilities that I thought of while watching, but it was not done in a super predictable way, and I did appreciate that.

All in all, this is a nice weekend film. I think that the current IMDB rating of 4.4 is harsh - the acting is solid, the story is original and the production values are sound. I think that some people cannot look past the patina of a summer teen flick and see the film for what it is, but I can see past it and I liked what I saw.