You'll have a better chance of enjoying Christopher Nolan's latest film if you are a fan of his back-to-front thriller Memento, rather than his later Batman Begins.
Set in Victorian England, Prestige has Rupert (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred ( Christian Bale) as two magicians who become bitter rivals after Rupert's wife is accidentally drowned on stage.
The film unravels during three time periods. In the earliest, we see the accident, which Rupert blames on Alfred, and which ignites the contest of wills in earnest.
In the second, Rupert is in Colorado Springs consulting a distinguished scientist (David Bowie) about a time machine that Alfred uses in his successful show. In the third, we skip ahead to the attempt by one magician to kill the other.
Prestige is clearly about all sorts of things - obsession, revenge and the price paid to pursue it, even the nature of magic itself. Sometimes it looks as if Nolan is commenting on his own propensity for puzzling audiences by refusing straightforward narrative.
While he's a good enough film-maker to keep us intrigued by his strange period piece, and while there are genuinely good performances from Jackman, Bale and Michael Caine (as a veteran illusionist), he tells his tricksy story at such a ponderous length that the magical world he's examining seems almost mundane, and sometimes even dull.
Besides which, he wastes Scarlett Johansson (Rupert's assistant) and Rebecca Hall (Alfred's wife). A definite sin.
The Prestige
Cert: 12A
