The Prestige

Now this was a wonderful movie. It's a bit of a mystery. And there's murder, but the movie isn't so much about who's the murderer, but about other questions that might have lead to the murder.

There are clues all through out the movie. There's a clue at the opening credits, but it's just a bunch of hats, and you don't realize it was a clue until much later. By the end of the movie you realize that everything was a clue, but there was so much back and forth and flashbacks that you just didn't piece it together until nearly the end.

Anyway, I don't want to give anything away if you haven't seen it and want to be surprised, so I think that it's time for a SPOILER ALERT.
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There were a lot of little things about this movie that I thought were interesting. Like I didn't know that the disappearing bird in a cage trick used to kill the bird. If you can imagine a big rat-trap that is more shaped like a cage, and when sprung it totally collapses and crushes whatever is in the cage. And, if you're not careful, it might break a few fingers as well.

At the beginning of the film there is a death, followed by a murder trial. It does seem like the man was convicted of a crime he did not commit. And in fact, are we even certain who was killed? Since the main characters are magicians, you might wonder if in fact anyone was killed.

Like I said, there are a lot of flashbacks. First, there's a murder trial and testimony at the trial, and then one magician is reading the other one's diary, and then the other one is reading his. One magician has a trick called The Transported Man, and then the other one wants to know how its done and ends up creating a similar looking trick that isn't done the same way. One magician is sent on a wild goose chase to visit the scientist Tesla. If Tesla looks familiar, that's because he's played by David Bowie. The trip to see Tesla leads to an enormous amount of money being spent on an electric contraption, that apparently doesn't nothing but send bolts of lightning through whatever is inside the chamber. But then there are the hats, so maybe the contraption does something after all. And if you've read or seen "Think Like a Dinosaur" then you can guess most of what is coming.

This was a really great film, probably the best I've seen since The Butterfly Effect or maybe even The Matrix.