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The PrestigeDirector: Christopher Nolan Rating: 3 out of 5 Let me tell you a thing or two about covert operations you snivelling pack of mummies-boys. There are two types of secrets in this man’s army – those you’d die to keep, and those you’d kill to know. When they are one and the same then what you have is a good old-fashioned standoff, settled only by a strategically placed trip wire or a cluster of claymores. What the two celluloid magicians in The Prestige have – apart from an industrial strength case of bad accents – is gusto, man! They’ve got the sort of motivation that made Charlie harder to drive back than a service station trailer back in the ‘Nam in ‘71. Betraying women, cutting off digits, killing off clones… that’s the sort of thing Australia was built on! Why, it’s enough to bring a tear of pride to my eye – if I hadn’t lost my tear ducts during an Iraqi interrogation drill in Kuwait. Yes, Jackman is a bit of a Nancy-boy in this movie, but make no bones about it, he and civilian Bale know how to keep top-secret information underground – with the sort of grit and hardcore determination that would make a suicide bomber gasp! This film should be shown to every God-fearing Aussie infantryman as an example of the sort of lengths they should go to protect the freedom this country enjoys. Verbatim: In a word: Magic
By The Dude Rating: 2 out of 5 Next time The Dude runs into the artist formerly known as Wolverine, I’m gonna tell him to give up the dancing, singing and everything Peter Allen, and get back to them proper action movies we all know and love. "Hey there Hugh Jackman. Now I don’t mind a bit of ‘I Still Call Australia Home’, and the odd magic trick will keep The Dude interested for five minutes, but lay off the nancy-boy stuff and get back to muscle-building, ball-tearing action adventures, yeah. I know you want to be taken seriously as an actor Hugh Jackman, but c’mon man. You were purpose-built for action, not arthouse. Now throw out that there period drama script and pick up anything by JJ Abrams. There’s a good chap." This one’s pretty much about a couple of duelling magicians ready to duke it out on account they both want the best trick show in town – much like Harry Potter takin’ on Lord Voldemort, or Yoda takin’ on the Emperor, except without all the CGI sparks and light sabres - instead its doves in a cage and playing cards at 50 paces. Anyhow, one of them conjures up a trick that would make Dumbledor’s jaw hit the ground, and the other guy, the aforementioned Hugh Jackman in prissy English snob-mode, goes to extreme measures to crack the code (and by extreme The Dude only means scouring the countryside, not tearing up the streets like Rambo-extreme). Oh, and somehow Scarlett Johansson gets written in which serves to lift the movie’s appeal moderately, The Dude must confess. Not sure what she’s doing in there, but who cares. The biggest trick of the movie is to keep the secret twist so well concealed that it took three more viewings, two Christian Bales and about 378 Hugh Jackmans to understand it all. Extras: Yak track and making of, but precious little concerning do-it-yourself magic. A card trick or coin illusion would have raised the 3-star rating. In a word: Believable
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