The Prestige???

O-in · 09-12-2006 11:52am #1

I'm going to be blunt, I hate this film! I thought it was crap and wanted to let you all know. What do you think of it? Feel free to verbally abuse me if you disagree. Just because everyone else says its great doesn't mean I have to agree.

monkeyfudge · 09-12-2006 11:58am

But it does mean you should explain your opinion, otherwise you just come across as a troll.

Why did you feel it was crap?

Average-Ro · 09-12-2006 1:43pm

Yeah, I'm not going to 'verbally abuse' you cuz I feel the same way about the prestige, but would you mind explaining why you don't like it?

I loved it myself to be honest. Did you like Memento by any chance? They're kinda similar. Christopher Nolan AND his brother Jhon were involved in both.

Dont be at yourself · 09-12-2006 2:01pm

In most other years, this would be the film of the year. It was an excellent film. What's not to like about it?

ixoy · 09-12-2006 3:50pm

O-in wrote:

I'm going to be blunt, I hate this film! I thought it was crap and wanted to let you all know. What do you think of it? Feel free to verbally abuse me if you disagree. Just because everyone else says its great doesn't mean I have to agree.

You don't have to agree but you should make a more constructive post. Why didn't you like it would be a good place to start. Just flatly telling us you didn't like it only irritates me and gets threads locked.

O-in · 09-12-2006 4:14pm

Actually Momento is one of my favourite films and I've seen Batman Begins, which I also loved. But in the Prestige Nolan seems to just use the same techniques but poorly, it worked well with the story line of Momento but the story line of The Prestige is stupid. The plot is just one narrative inside another and again inside another. Its radiculisly over complicated. And dont even get me started about the clones (when did it become a sci-fi film, it just doesn't fit).

I'll admite I'm a bit of a Film Nazi

*Apologies for not elaborating*

Dont be at yourself · 09-12-2006 4:47pm

I found the narrative structure fantastic myself - really conveying the one-upmanship between the two leads as they'd mine each others diaries etc for secrets. It wasnt over-complicated at all, it was essential to the telling of the story, I find.

The clone thing is the deal breaker for most people. For me, it was what the film was all about. Danton was so driven to best his rival that he ended up giving up everything in order to copy Bale's trick, driving himself to murder/suicide in the process - something made 100 times more powerful when we see how relatively simply Bale was able to perform the trick. The theme of the movie is how the rivalry ultimately corrupted, consumed and ultimately destroyed Danton, and how better can that be symbolised than by him literally killing himself every night on stage?

Average-Ro · 09-12-2006 9:49pm

Well you say you didn't like the narative structure and all that.........what would you have done differentlly?? Personally, I can't see this movie working in chronological order, it just wouldn't work IMO.

O-in · 10-12-2006 11:50pm

I dont think it was worth making. I did like the competion but everything around that is crap *spoiler*****the clones, the twins and the whole tesla part (and why was bowie playing tesla, that was a bit random)**** all seemed pointless. I know it couldn't have been done another way and the original story was basically the same (with another narrative as well) but I just think that narrative structure was to complicated (not everything transfers well from books to films no matter how much we want them to). Cinema should take a simple concept and twist it (formalism) so it becomes strange, but the Prestige trys to do twist after twist after twist until it gets knotted up in itself. As I said to people before, I think Nolan hoped we would be so confused with the number of twists that we would walk out of the cinema saying, "That must be good, cause I'll be damned if could understand it".

(I did think the love interests were good at times. The magic tricks were good though and I did like the cinematography.)

Also my original statment makes me sound like a tool, I apologies if I sounded rude.

spacecoyote · 11-12-2006 8:08am

O-in wrote:

why was bowie playing tesla, that was a bit random

bit of a strange statement. Then why was Bale, Jackman, Caine, Johansson in it, could be seen as just as random? And I thought Bowie was very good in the part!

On the whole I liked the film, but didn't love it. I had maybe overinflated expectations for it based on Nolans previous movies, but it really didn't live up to my hopes for the film. (i started a thread on this a few weeks back if you search for it OP you'll find you're not the only one who had issues with the movie)

Running Bing · 11-12-2006 4:59pm

Id say give it another go op. I loved it btw and I cant wait to see it again on dvd. I think Nolan basically presents the film as a big magic trick, remember the film starts with mickey caine telling us there are three stages(read:acts) to a magic trick! Sound familiar?(plus I checked it out and I think the whole pledge,turn prestige thing is just made up. Can someone confirm this?). Part of the fun of a magic trick is trying to figure it out. Maybe its the same with the movie.

O-in · 13-12-2006 8:55pm

Bale etc. where in the film because they are (currently popular) actors. I wasn't saying Bowie was bad, I just found it odd that they gave him a caimo because it wasn't obvioous it was him (it wouldn't nessisarily occur to you that it was him) and he had nothing to do with the film (camios by Hitchcock in his films and Stan Lee in Marvel films make sense).

Micheal Caine was really good and I thought the film started off well with that scene but I think for a film like this Nolan shouldn't have tried so hard to confuse, I was following it well enough until the twists started going back and forth so much.

The term the Prestige is made up, if you look it up on Wikipedia you can read aboutthe original novel etc.

Erin Go Brath · 13-12-2006 10:10pm

Thought The Prestige was very good. Good story, good actors, and a twist that keeps you thinking to the end. Would recommend this film to anyone who hasnt seen it.

BlitzKrieg · 13-12-2006 10:32pm

I wasn't saying Bowie was bad, I just found it odd that they gave him a caimo because it wasn't obvioous it was him (it wouldn't nessisarily occur to you that it was him)

could it be because Bowie does a bit of acting as well as singing (he's appeared in 28 movies/tv shows http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000309/

I enjoyed the Prestige but I understand its not for everyone's taste, which disapoints me because because what Nolan appeared to be doing in it was combining the two different styles of filmmaking he had already directed with both Memento and Batman Begins. Maybe audiences perfer to have it concentrated in one style rather then mixing.

Snake Plisken · 14-12-2006 1:33am

I haven't seen the Prestige, but I do like Chris Nolans other films Insomnia and Batman Begins, but I hated Momento, I think I was expecting a bit too much having read the reviews etc. So I must catch the Prestige and post my views, I'm hoping that I will like it, but we shall see.

Snake

The Prestige???

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