The Prestige

I recently saw The Prestige, a movie that can't quite be described without then being ridiculed. That's not to say that it wasn't good, because it was. Quite good, in fact. However, the premise contains some elements of science fiction as well as the possibility of the occult. Two magicians, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, are constantly dueling and sabotaging each other's acts in a relentless obsession of one-up-manship.

Unfortunately, I couldn't watch Christian Bale without "I am Batman" running through my head, and was quite pissed when Hugh Jackman didn't simply eviscerate Christian with a simple Snick-snick-snickety-snick of his claws. This might just be me, because I also had brief, nightmarish flashes of Hugh in Kate and Leopold.

Some other notable scenes/thoughts during the movie:

• Hugh Jackman wanders into a giant, alternating current, crazy-ass lightning machine, in the hopes of mimicking Storm's powers.


• Christian Bale picks up a woman by showing her nephew a magic trick. He later takes her out for dinner, and drops her off at her apartment, where she refuses to let him in. Being a magician, he decides to break in, and when she turns around, he's offering her a tea kettle. She laughs at this. Yes, breaking and entering, with the possibility of sexual assault, is apparently the way into her heart.


• At some point, Christian's wife is railing on and on about how she knows what he is. I guessed correctly, but I also wondered if he was somehow a zombie. Then I realized being the undead probably wouldn't help you make canaries disappear, would lead to a constant threat of decapitation by overzealous zombie hunters and would cause dogs to bark at you.

So if you want to convince your friends to see this movie, which was really quite good, please do not try to explain the plot. Trust me, Christopher Nolan tells the story WAY better than you would.