Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Sleight of Hand

We watched both the Prestige & the Illusionist in the weekend. The former injvolves a years long feud between two magicians (Batman & Wolverine) at the top of their games, the latter only has one, but he's got a years long feud with a Prince.

Not THE Prince, you understand, not the little short singer guy. A prince.

Anyway, I was disappointed with both, The Prestige resorts to science fiction, and a plot twist that was so cunning I didn't notice it until I read a few reviews days later. Maybe I was drunk or something. I was especially disappointed because Christopher Nolan also directed Memento, which was fantastic. Anyway, The Prestige is OK, but no more. Good performances though. And it's based on a novel, so presumably Nolan's not to blame for the plot.

The Illusionist is much more straightforward, it has Edward Norton trying to score back his childhood love (Jessica Beihl) from an evil prince (Rufus Sewell). What really disappointed me about this is that they resorted to CGI to perform some of thr tricks. Oh well.

Slight of hand.

It's all about misdirection. And Red herrings.