Thursday, September 21, 2006

Taking The Luster Off The Prestige



If movies always come in pairs, The Prestige is definitely the second ace of the magician-related films being dealt by Hollywood. Just like Armageddon was the obviously superior companion piece with Deep Impact back in the great Summer of '98. And of course who wanted to forget the great Lava debate of '97 between Dante's Peak and the Tommy Lee Jones/ Anne Heche vehicle Volcano.

Ok, time to get serious. After the superb original trailer, a second trailer has appeared attempting to quash those feelings of amazement from all were chomping at the bit to whip out their wallets.

Yahoo Movies has this latest trailer, or should I say the latest hackjob/abomination up. The only additions of this trailer are an awful voice over-the-top voice-over by the movie trailer voice over guy, some lightning flashes, and some choppy editing that makes the movie seem like incomprehensible garbage, losing the intrigue and gripping nature of the first trailer. Subtraction by addition, someone should be very ashamed of themselves.

This trailer causes a small doubt to sprung up in my mind. Even though I believe The Prestige will likely blow away its counterpart The Illusionist just on the basis of focused, maniacal look on Christian Bale's face that shows up in his best performances (i.e. American Psycho, The Machinist, and yes, even his rich brat character in Shaft). Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) in the director's chair is a nice insurance policy to bolster those positive gut reaction.

Still, I had to watch the first version of it three times to root out the memory of the-trailer-we-will-no-longer-speak-of. Here's to the hope that The Prestige will blow all expectations out of the water.

Thanks to JoBlo for bringing this abomination to the light of day.

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