Review: The Prestige / Fantastic Four 2

HOCUS FOCUS

The world of magic forms the centre of a thrilling, relentless drama. Plus, a refreshingly low-key superhero(es) adventure.

JUNE 22, 2007 – IT’S POSSIBLE that a chartered accountant, for instance, would find himself filled with a warm glow when a fellow chartered accountant gets ahead in life, but with actors or writers or pretty much anyone in a more “€œcreative” profession, a competitor’€™s success isn’t always an occasion to bring out the bubbly. With the arts, with show business, we’€™re more likely to find reactions of resentment, jealousy and insecurity, along with borderline-juvenile attempts at one-upmanship. We constantly keep hearing of filmmakers who belittle their more successful colleagues, or high-minded authors who scoff at the artlessness of their bestselling pulp-paperback brethren — and the reason for this less-than-honourable (though all-too-human) behaviour could be that the creative process is a bit like magic. You have no control over it. You can’€™t will it. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, all the hard work in the world cannot help you.

Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige expands this metaphorical premise and sets it, very literally, in the world of magic — with two rival magicians in turn-of-19th-century London repeatedly trying to get the better of one another. These games are apparently all pervasive, for Nolan alludes to Thomas Edison’s smear campaign against Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie with his characteristic space oddity), suggesting that even — or perhaps, especially –€“ geniuses aren’€™t immune to resentment, jealousy, insecurity and borderline-juvenile attempts at one-upmanship. Initially, the reason Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) goes after Alfred Borden (Christian Bale, using his cold composure to brilliant effect) is simply revenge — but gradually, it becomes clear that it’€™s also about who’s the better magician. (The who-can-play-better-tricks-on-whom structure of the film is reminiscent of Sleuth, whose star, Michael Caine, contributes a grand supporting turn here as Angier’€™s assistant.)

As this two-sided obsession spirals into near-madness, Nolan explores what it takes to be an artist –€“ a complete devotion to the art, the willingness to sacrifice all else, the absolute necessity of getting your hands dirty — and as long as the narrative stays focused on Angier and Borden, The Prestige is a thrilling, grimly relentless drama. But the diversions that account for the love interests (Piper Perabo, Scarlett Johansson) are less involving, and that’€™s perhaps inevitable –€“ for in Nolan’s world, what sustains creativity isn’€™t romance but recognition. In the film’s most affecting sequence, Angier performs a stunning trick that ends with him beneath the stage, while the audience is still seeing him above the stage, thanks to a double who’€™s pretending to be him. And that’€™s the man they applaud, not Angier, who can do nothing more (from below) than simply bow in the general direction of the applause. It’s this magician’€™s great moment of triumph, and he’s become invisible. For an artist, that’s a fate worse than death.

THE ONLY POINT of interest for me while going into Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was the Silver Surfer himself –€“ not because I’m a big fan of the character (I haven’t read any of the comics myself), but because of the hipness associated with him in Jim McBride’s candy-coloured remake of Godard’s Breathless. In that film, the amoral punk played by Richard Gere derived great pleasure from Silver Surfer comics, and for one of those maddeningly inexplicable reasons that possibly defines the very complex and sticky allure of pop culture, this nugget got tucked away someplace in my brain over the years. And the instant the Silver Surfer, in this sequel to Fantastic Four, burst into view in a face off with the Human Torch (Chris Evans), I understood Gere’€™s addiction. Looking as if Terminator 2’s molten-metal cyborg villain were cruising the Manhattan air currents on a gleaming surfboard, this character is the very definition of cool. It’s not surprising that they wrote an entire movie around him.

But that’s not to say the Fantastic Four are reduced to slackers. Along with the Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), The Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba) and The Thing (Michael Chiklis) find themselves having to save the planet (what else?) from certain doom when the Surfer lands up from outer space – but a bigger challenge may be trying to squeeze in the wedding of Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman. Rise of the Silver Surfer is every bit as cheesy as this plot synopsis sounds –€“ but that’€™s the source of its low-rent, B-movie charm. This is a cheerfully disposable throwback to the days of comic-book filmmaking when existential angst was barely a blip on the horizon, when the entertaining special effects were serviceable (but not terribly groundbreaking), when sci-fi jargon was sprinkled about like so much confetti (my favourite is the bit that Mr. Fantastic mumbles about molecules being in a constant state of flux), and when everything was anchored by a nice, juicy moral (remember: there’s always a choice). I can’t recall the last time I exited a high-concept summer movie with such a light heart.

Copyright ©2007 The New Indian Express

Posted in: Cinema: English