Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

The secret impresses no-one. The trick you use it for is everything

The Why
This used to be one of my favourite movies; the story intrigued me and I remember feeling like I never confirmed the meaning of the ending. Many years have passed since I last watched The Prestige, and as I unfortunately have a terrible memory, I pretty much forgot everything that happens. All I could recall was that it had something to do with magicians.

The Rewatch
In the probably ten years since I last saw this movie my film knowledge has increased exponentially. With that being said, the first thing I did of course clock on to, was the Christopher Nolan x Christian Bale x Michael Caine collab in The Prestige which would have taken place after Batman Begins (2005).

Though I have technically seen this movie before (so you can call me a cheat if you want) with my more experienced eyes it was easier to spot the subtle foreshadowing signs that were placed from the first frame, and the major reveals. However, this didn’t make rewatching the movie any less enjoyable.

Christian Bale and Hugh Jackson (who was clearly born to act in this era) were the perfect oppositions, their spiralling rivalry reached twisted hights and each brought their own level of combative darkness to the table with their individual tactics to get one over on the other.

The constant deception and trickery bled out of the screen and also worked to fool us too. We became part of their audience, unsure of where the trick was going but excited and ready to be amazed.

Two things that I really enjoyed about this was the realisation that the person who you think is the good guy is actually the bad (debatable). It dawned on me very late in the game that I was rooting for the wrong person to succeed (again, debatable). Also the parallels with death across the board I found very poetic, if not to say morbid AF.

Such a clever, and unexpectedly dark movie that I was glad to enjoy all over again. Makes me want to dive back into some of the older previously watched Nolan movies to see what else I may have missed the first time around.