Critique a Critic

Having never really read a film critique before I wondered whose to read and on what movie. I ended up reading one on the movie The Prestige by the critic Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. I was sure that Ty Burr was going to bash the film but in reality he got me excited to watch it again. In this review Ty Burr describes The Prestige in a very interesting way:

On the heels of ``The Illusionist," the season's surprise hit, comes a second tale of period legerdemain. Ironically, doubles are at the heart of ``The Prestige," which sets two magicians at each other ' s throats in a decade-long battle for supremacy. It's like ``The Illusionist" crossed with a really hard Sudoku.

I felt that this description fit very well. While I watched The Prestige I had to be constant thinking about what was happening and who was doing what, and the thought that was always present, what is going to happen next, much like the concentration needed in a game of Sudoku. Burr also briefly states the main trick of the show, "The Transported Man", and gives a little hint as to what it has to do with by naming a man that few people know much about and is the rival to Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla.

Going back to Burr describing the movie as a whole Burr states:

Fun? Yes, even when the machinery of betrayal and counter-betrayal gets overly busy. Based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Priest, ``The Prestige" has been directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, and it's very much the work of the man who gave us 2000's ``Memento." There are flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks here, and not all of them tell the truth.

By likening The Prestige to Momento, that I believe is in general thought of well by people that have seen it, brings The Prestige into good light to the reader. Also his descriptions of flashbacks are very true to the story because much of the story is just that, flashbacks.

With the good of the movie there is also some downfalls in it and I do agree very much so with one of the things Burr says in the last couple paragraphs:

``The Prestige" begins to spin out of the director's control around this time, though. One shadowy character in particular is easy to identify; once you tumble to that, the game's up.

Near the end of the movie, it becomes plainfully obvious about what the character Alfred Borden has done and once you do figure it out, you can tell what is going to happen in the end. Burr also brings up the point that the last trick tumbles out of the realm of being physically possible and into the realm of science fiction which leaves the movie watcher feeling slightly cheated.

With the end of his review, Burr provides an interesting bit of knowledge about the title of the film:

The title is theater slang referring to the third part of a magic trick. The set-up is called The Pledge, the initial ruse The Turn. The Prestige is the twist that sends you home gobsmacked . Nolan has the first two down perfectly , but the finale requires more sleight of hand than even this skilled prestidigitator can manage.

The Prestige did really set up the first two parts very well but as Burr said, its lacks the "gobsmacked" ending at the movie because you can easily figure it out ending before it is revealed.

As a whole I thought that Ty Burr's review of The Prestige was fairly accurate and highlighted some of the great parts in the movie but also told of the downside of the ending. After reading it I quickly realized that this is true, at least in my mind. The Prestige was still a good movie none the less.