Because The Prestige has Scarlett Johansson in it, I have been looking forward to it for a long time. The director is Christopher Nolan, the screenwriter and director of Memento (memory fragments), and he also participated in the script adaptation of the film. The original work is science fiction, but the movie is hardly a true science fiction work.
Starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, the current Wolverine and Batman, the roles played by the two this year are not very normal, and the same is true in this film. As for Scarlett, which I want to see through, it is only a third supporting role. Although it is indispensable to the plot, there are really not many scenes and limited space to play. It is by no means a vital protagonist as pre-screening propaganda said.
The meaning of the name The Prestige is made clear by the narration at the beginning. It is said that magic is divided into three parts. One is to show the same common thing, the second step is to make it disappear, and the last step is also the most critical step, which is to disappear again. The thing changed back again, the so-called prestige. This word means prestige and prestige in English, and its origin is the Latin word praestigiae which means "preliminary cover" and "deception, trickery". Whether this is actually a term in magic or is a novelist's nonsense, we laymen don't need to figure it out if we don't understand it. The most important thing is guidance. This is the focus of the two male protagonists.
The story tells that Angier, played by Jackman, wants to avenge his wife, and Borden, played by Bale, vowed to become a top magician while fighting Angier’s relentless blow. The two parties performed in the same city the "man-transfer" that is known as the highest state of magic, and the key to the "man-transfer" lies in its prestige-how to return the people who have disappeared. The faster the disappeared person appears, the more incredible the place and the way it appears, the more successful the magic will be.
Therefore, the two are struggling to spy on each other's secrets, to expose their opponents and invent more sophisticated tricks to defeat their opponents, and at the same time they also have to set more real traps to guard against prying eyes. As a result, the whole movie reveals the magic tricks and mysteries in the lives of two magicians.
Those who are familiar with "Memories" should not be unfamiliar or puzzled by the film's narrative techniques. The director disrupted the chronological order, and Borden read Angier's diary in prison-Angier read Borden's diary before his death-the things narrated in Borden's diary formed three different time planes, and then intertwined with three time and space , Intersperse, complement each other to complete the narrative. Considering the audience of commercial films, time-space switching is not too complicated, and it is much more straightforward than "Memories" and "21 Grams."
The creation of suspense and atmosphere is basically successful. When Angier saw the unexpected conclusion in Borden’s diary, Angier and the audience believed that the truth was overturned, and the truth fell into a fog and was out of reach; and Borden was in the fog again. When Angier saw the words of cold sweat in Angier's diary, the audience once again felt fooled, because even the plot at the beginning of the film was an illusion. Borrow a certain slogan, you're fooled.
Of course, this kind of suspense itself is quite satisfactory. For example, an audience with a more abnormal psychology like me, thinks about the abnormality from the beginning, so no matter how the suspense is suspended, it is not out of control, so I saw a lot of hats in Angier. At the time, I desperately thought, this must be a scam. Because if it’s also a scam here, it’s really difficult to connect with the previous plot, so I hope that the director will have a clue at the end, and Nuwa will fill the sky with the whole story. It will really make people appreciate it. what.
It's a pity that the original is science fiction, and the middle mood festival is here, so that machine came out. But the director did not shoot it as a sci-fi movie at the beginning. What he made was a suspenseful film. The suspense later had a sci-fi tail, giving people a sense of "not enough play, science fiction". So I still advise Nolan to learn more from Tsui Hark. What if he is not faithful to the original work? The first priority of the director is to make a good film. The Oscars did not "respect the original work award."
However, it is also slander to say that there is no foreshadowing at all. In the previous plot, there is a very important foreshadowing and hint, that is, the magic of the bird in the cage, which basically tells the audience in advance what is going to happen next.
Moreover, leaving aside the cohesion and unity of the whole film, the ending alone is quite good. Even my perverted mind has been a little satisfied. So as the biggest flaw in the whole film, it can also be said to be the biggest bright spot.
Hugh Jackman's acting is three-dimensional and plump. People who have only seen him play Wolverine might think that he only has plump tendons. That is prejudice. The despair and shock on his face at the end, as if he had never read a script... In contrast, Christian Bale's style, at first, I felt that the stage play had a strong flavor and the traces of "acting" were heavy. After watching the whole movie, I realized that it was a plot need. Basically it was good, but the scene where he said he fell in love with Olivia, from his face, I can’t see the shadow of love at first sight... Scarlett Johansson, as shown above Said, there is limited space to play, everything is stable, no work is done, the only drawback is that I always only stare at her face and body, and forget to pay attention to what she is talking to them...
To understand this film, it is also necessary to know who Nikola Tesla is. He was a physicist at the same time as Edison, and the founder of modern electrical and communication systems such as alternating current. He had more than 700 patents in his life, and he started with Edison. It was a colleague and then an opponent. Because Edison DC, he communicated. He once did a wireless transmission experiment, plugging light bulbs on the ground in a radius of tens of kilometers, which proved that "the earth is a conductor", that is, the source of the plot of the big bulb lit up in the movie. "Where are the wires?" Angier asked at the time.
In short, if you want to watch a science fiction movie, then don't watch this movie; if you want to watch a suspense movie, please lower your expectations and watch this movie; if you want to have fun during the holiday, this is the first choice in the near future. To see Scarlett Johansson, please go to the video store downstairs to rent Scoop DVDs.
View more about The Prestige reviews
