DVD Review: The Prestige Blu-ray Edition

I have to admit to being disturbed by The Prestige on some basic levels. Chief among them is that nowhere in the trailer was there any mention of going beyond real world physics. Nor did we get an accurate view of the characters because some really important details were left out.

When the trailer first started playing in the theaters, I was really looking forward to it. I saw Edward Norton’s The Illusionist first and really enjoyed it, though it too had a bit of a meandering problem due to the nature of the conflict. Both films are really small in some ways, microcosms in the world that depend largely on interior story and suffering on part of the characters. Those are good aspects of story, but these were magicians. I simply wanted more and bigger magic. I really wanted more explanation of the tricks period magicians did at the time in The Prestige.

The movie is based on the book by Christopher Priest. Priest is a horror/SF novelist and comic book writer. He turned in one of the most impressive comic book runs ever when he was writing Black Panther.

I have to admit to being pretty much pulled along by the story and the dark natures of the characters as well as the rivalry they followed until the final frames of the movie. Unfortunately, I'd figured most of them out and generally ended up asking myself, why?

When Angier’s wife was dropped into the water tank, I knew things were going to end badly. Even prepared for it, though, the gritty realism of the scene was hard to take.

Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Scarlet Johansson delivered stand-up work in their roles, but they were empty of some real resolution to a degree. Overall, the characters were paper-thin in the finished product and lacked enough flesh and bones to make me care about them much. I was more concerned with how the illusion was being done and what Angier was doing in Colorado trying to talk to Nikola Tesla. Once I had that figured out, I was done with the film to a large extent. Without true character development, all that was left to see was the trick.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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