so...The Prestige
I'm gonna say less than flattening things about this movie but rest assured it was very good.
The Prestige is one of those movies everyone told me was tremendous and I never saw it. I miss a lot of movies that everyone liked. I never saw Memento or The Social Network, and I honestly have convinced myself I'm not missing much, I've never seen The Prestige and I feel like I have been missing an incredible amount. But alas finally I remembered the movie existed not knowing who was in it or really what it was about and as I watch it I slowly realize this movie has just about every actor I've ever hated in it ever. Seriously look at those names up there, they are a Travolta and a Jolie away from me hitting the eject button with my cock helmet.
I hate when I recognize actors from other movies especially when they act similarly or more to the point do nothing to just fit into the movie and instead remind me I am watching lights on a screen. Whenever I see Robin Wright Penn I never think "oh thats Jenny" or "its the Princess Bride broad". She isn't a character actor but she's incredibly recognizable and always fits into whatever she is in seamlessly. Anyways Defense attorney for Christian Bale is Robin from Cheers/the Sheriff of Rottingham from Robin Hood men in Tights in it. And just before he completely undoes my suspension of reality combination lock. Michael Caine says "The Prestige" but not in passing, he says it like "THA PRAH-STEEEEEEEJ" and its just such a declarative sentence that the whole fucking screen might as well have said it. Background characters and extras should've dropped what they were doing like it was a song and dance routine. So already I can't help but constantly think "I'm watching a movie called The Prestige with people I know aren't real".
Speaking of Michael Caine. I've never been around for when Michael Caine was a great actor. Every time I see him in a movie he borders on dreadful. I saw him in A Bridge Too Far and The Man Who Would Be King and those were OK. Its just that I've had a lifetime of him being in Jaws 2, On Deadly Ground(a Steven Seagal movie), Austin Powers, and Get Carter. I'm starting to convince myself that Caine is a credited and talented thespian much in the way that everyone is convinced that Angelina Jolie is beautiful and sex....yeah we get it Jed she's a pig and everything sucks. Caine to me is such a dullard in every movie. Plus he's made so many dreadful ones. I keep expecting him to call someone a "chap" or "guvnah". But don't worry guys, Caine isn't alone in failing to be convincing in anyway.
Christian Bale joins Caine and Jude Law as British men who can't do English accents in period pieces. Hugh Jackman who is Australian does a better American accent than either of them can do Cockney English. Is Christian Bale a good actor? I hate to admit this but we're so far into me bashing good actors that I'm starting to be a fucking prick. And I've been teasing people with my "why Christian Bale isn't a good actor" piece but it'll have to wait. Because in this movie he's really really great outside of his accent. Thankfully he doesn't keep it through the entire film. In the beginning Bale sounds like Oliver Twiste grown up and by the middle of it he sounds exactly like how he did in Reign of Fire. Any problem I have with Bale throughout this movie gets completely overshadowed by HORRENDOUS acting by people around him. Most noticeably Scarlett Johansson Every role playing bit actor in it(cops, inmates, venue owners and especially the audience members) and Michael Cain.
In a nice surprise Jackman is actually great in this movie as well. Hugh plays two deeper roles with different motivations backgrounds and accents more convincingly than Johansson could approach playing one not entirely important woman. At one point Bale visits Johansson and by now you know something is up, maybe not that there are 3 Bale's but at the very least that silliness is a foot. Bale's wife who is great in this movie (despite me trashing her in Vicky Christina Barcelona and ironically unlike Scarlett) is upset with Bale and knows shenanigans are afoot. Bale goes to Johansson and is obviously having complex thought and depth and is really doing a good job, or he did an ok job and just looked like a 3d painting of a glacier torn landscape with mountains and valleys compared to the flatness that is Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett is just so fucking fishy on the screen and its not just this movie. She has no depth in any movie, her acting is the opposite of her tits. Thats a really uncreative sentence but I wanted to be able to post a picture of her and her tits in 8 lines so let it slide. She never plays animated, she's always distantly upset, or too sad to emote anything other than a drained melancholy. She is a fantastic model who for some reason is being filmed and asked to carry a story through words. She has like a 1930s beauty and set of cheekbones, she has big glassy eyes that have nothing behind them. She released a cd of cover songs and thats all she really is, a cover act of other peoples work redone just not as good. She would be an over qualified perfume add model but instead she is a lighthouse of distraction in a dark sea of a good movie.
can you guys feel the chemistry and sexual tension?!?!?!David Bowie playing Tesla however makes me so happy however. He's one of my favorite musicians playing one of my favorite historic figures. In fact if I had to rank them
1 Charlemagne
2 Tesla
3 David Bowie
So even in doing so its such a fucking party I could smile for days.
Is everyone deadly serious about this movie? Its not bad at all. Its just like... I just think The Illusionist despite having a worse name and a more overdone performance by a supposed fantastic actor is so distracting its sickening. Paul Giammati literally eats the entire scenery up with his bad accent and diction. Its like someone stood behind me dropping pots and pans every time he talked. And its still much less of a clusterfuck than this movie. At times this movie is a bigger clusterfuck than The Watchmen.
I feel so bad when Jackman's wife dies, this has nothing to do with anything but theres just something so shitty about drowning. It turns out whoever came up with CPR really was a solid dude, apparently before the CPR all you can do is just shake the person and just slap the lips and cheek saying "come on". Is it a bloody common theme amongst magicians to have a wife die and not react whatsoever over it? Jesus fuck. I know thats the sad part that both wives die for their husbands act and the husbands both find themselves too consumed with their work to notice or really care later. But I mean seriously, Is there any possible way Hugh Jackman wouldn't be more crushed when his wife dies and he's destined to spend his life without female companion and with his assistant Michael Caine and various male help....oh.
This movies twist at the end is so fucking unforgiving for the rest of this movie it hurts. It adds such a weird element of fantasy that I wasn't even aware we were going to. It was basically like watching a period piece movie for instance like Cold Mountain, the entire time you understand the time line and where you are with the setting and the characters and then suddenly one of the characters uses a dragon to defeat their enemy's army. By the time it happens and you kind of think it might happen you're so fucking floored by it that you realize you couldn't trust anyone to begin with and you're completely disenfranchised by the entire thing.
The twist in The Illusionist is much more reasonable all be it independent of this movie still ridiculous. I really enjoyed the inside magicianary talk that went over my head and i read about after and then enjoyed in my second and third time watching it. First time through though it was harder to understand than the quantum subplot to the newer Bond movies, to the point where I had to text someone I knew saw this movie to ask "what the fuck is going on". I like movies that are difficult to watch and involves contemplation during and after, but when you think that the entire audience has strong 19th century ties to entertainers and more specifically magicians then you're pretty much just showing your dick to the audience to tell them how much bigger yours is.
not that it is.
seriously
