Double Feature: The Prestige & The Illusionist

Last year there were two big-time movies released about magicians. I’m talking about the two big studio, big stars theatrical releases, not the DVD’s that are available teaching you how to do magic found on the back of matchbooks.

They were The Illusionist and The Prestige. Loretta and I saw both of them in the theater. Before I attempt to describe the differences between the two (and, yes, the story lines were quite dissimilar despite the similar material)...neither one of them were great flicks. But one of them was not as bad as the other, and both may be worthy of being on your Netflix lists. The Illusionist has been out on DVD for a while, The Prestige is available now.

The Illusionist had Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel. The Prestige had Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Cane, Scarlet Johanssen, and David Bowie. Decidedly, from the lists of stars, The Prestige was kind of a “bigger” movie. But let us not judge the merits of these films by the star-power alone. And...I’m quite a fan of Giamatti!

The Illusionist is set in turn-of-the-century Vienna and concerns a magician (Norton) using his abilities as a magician to secure the love of a woman far above his social standing. The Prestige is set in turn-of-the-century London and concerns the rivalry between two magicians (Jackman and Bale) and the lengths to which one of them will go to secure the other’s “trade secrets”.

Both movies are filled with many twists, turns, red herrings, and the obligatory surprise ending. Originally, I was going to include “spoilers” in this blog post, but have decided to leave them out. I think they both deserve your attention from a fresh perspective.

With that in mind, here are some of my complaints about these two good, but not great, films.

I just couldn’t “buy in” to the faux-Austrian accent from Giamatti. It sounded more like a English accent with a touch of Colonel Klink thrown in occasionally. Norton’s inflections were similar, but even less pronounced...with his usual high, lispy voice...it wasn’t believable for a “period piece” set in Austria. I don’t recall Jessica Biel having any type of European accent at all. Maybe I was distracted by her sometimes hot/sometimes homely face...I still haven’t decided which side of that coin she resides. The cinematographic style of The Illusionist involved the washed out color of sepia tone. And the flashbacks were made to look like daguerreotype newsreel footage, ie, dark framed shots with even less color and pinwheel transitions.

The surprise ending in The Illusionist wasn’t much of a surprise for me, as I figured it out about halfway through the movie. But, the journey to that reveal was kind of fun. I always get some satisfaction from actually solving a puzzle. The same can’t be said for ending of The Prestige. I tell you why in moment (sans spoiler!). The Illusionist is a decent murder/mystery/love story set around the life of a dedicated magician.

The Prestige. By the way...the prestige is the element of a trick that comes at the end of it...the actual trick itself, the audience is amazed, “how’d they do that?” Herein lies Robert Angier’s (Jackman) obsession through the whole movie: to discover Alfred Borden’s (Bale) secrets...the prestige of his tricks. And this compulsion leads Jackman on a journey that ends with a foray into science fiction. And herein lies my biggest complaint about The Prestige. Without giving away the climax of the move...the sub-climax is all H.G.. Wells. The final climax is more “down to earth”, and quite satisfying. But...it wasn’t difficult to figure out about halfway through. The Prestige is a decent murder/mystery set around the lives of two dedicated, and obsessed, magicians.

Scarlett Johanssen seemed to be thrown into the mix for window dressing, not much of a part for The Sexiest Woman Alive. Hugh Jackman is in his usual hunky/deep mode here. Michael Caine is always good, this time playing another “Man Friday”, ie, as in Batman Returns. Christian Bale, in my opinion, is probably the best actor in the business today. Since Empire of the Sun, I have been a big fan of his work. "...P-51...Cadillac of the Sky!!! Horsepower! Horsepower!"

The Prestige and The Illusionist are very different movies, despite the fact that they were released within weeks of one another and they both involve the world of turn-of-the-century magic. It really makes one wonder how this close proximity happened. Of all the scripts and movie ideas out there, why would the mega-powerful powers-to-be choose this route? Two major studio releases about magic within weeks of each other.

If I had to choose between the two, I would go with The Prestige...but only by a thread. Neither one of them rocked my boat. In fact, when we rented The Illusionist (Netflix) a while back, we napped through most of it. The Prestige is on our DVD list for another go around.

More often than not, the Special Features are far more interesting than the movie itself!