So much happens in this movie! Oh so much.
First - it's like the book, but it's not. Mirroring the magic it displays so beautifully. Christopher Nolan did a fantastic job taking the aspects of the book and twisting them just enough to put them on screen in a way that works so well. Every character is in place, the underlying reasons for the 'battle' between the two magicians is believable and well-played. It's all-around magnificent!
Second - the performances by every actor in the production are AMAZING! They all go that one step beyond acting the part - they BECOME the part. Everyone. Including Christian Bale who failed to impress me in "Batman Begins". Bale nails Borden perfectly and Jackman is Angier. The chemistry, the artistry - it is beyond amazing! (They had to be good if I'm saying this much - it takes a lot to impress me - especially if I was disappointed before.) But I'll say this - if this is what Hugh Jackman can do and his performance in "The Fountain" is supposed to surpass this - I cannot WAIT to see "The Fountain"!
Third - BWAH! We had a trailer for "The Fountain". Believe me - if you haven't seen and heard this in theater surround sound - you have YET to experience this trailer properly! It's even MORE breath-taking. ((All the other trailers were for **** movies so I don't really remember them... except "The Nativity Movie" or story or whatever - which just seems like a bad idea.))
Back to the movie - the actually SPOILER parts:
There were several things changed from the book - these are the ones I can recall from the beginning of the movie that are of importance:
* Borden and Angier are friends
* Borden and Angier are regular 'plants' in the audience for a water-chamber escape trick
* Julia is part of the trick and dies during it one night
* Julia's death sparks the rivalry between Angier and Borden - mostly b/c Borden claims to not remember which knot he tied during the performance that prevented Julia from being able to escape the chamber
There are others, but they make sense after those first few are in place.
Angier is looking for the big secret to Borden's trick - this is a MAJOR theme from the novel and it's incorportated nicely into the movie - but he thinks Cutter's explanation is far too simple to be the truth. Cutter is Angier's ingeniuer - he invents the tricks for Angier to perform on stage - and he's rather good at it too.
The 'battle' begins and the two magicians pick at each other - messing with each others' tricks on stage in an attempt to discredit each other for the wrongs done earlier in life - another of the major themes that is the crux of the story itself. The best one is during Angier's version of "The Transported Man" when Borden's removed the mat from beneath the stage and has bound Angier's double (who is played by a very famliar-looking gentleman) and Borden appears on stage in Angier's double's place, then has the Angier-double lowered from the rafters with a big sign (that I can't recall just now). It's really good.
One of the most major changes that was made is that Borden is actually charged with the murder of Robert Angier (his name is Rupert in the novel - but they made his character an American in the movie). *steps outside the movie for a moment* All of the bits and pieces I know of criminal procedure and courtroom procedure and evidence and the like has me screaming b/c there was NO evidence to support this claim, save that Borden happened to BE there on the night of the incident. There was no mention of Borden trying to break the tank for Angier to get out or the 'real' reason why the tank was there - not during the court proceedings anyway. Of course, once you step back and remember that this takes place circa 1900, the court proceedings make more sense and who would've believed that Borden was there to HELP Angier? The world knew of their professional rivalry - thus making Borden a primary suspect, since there was a witness to his being beneath the stage at the time of the incident. (Check out all that circumstantial evidence.)
Anyway - the movie isn't linear - it opens with part of the trial, then moves to a scene when the two men were still amicable, then shifts again, then back and tells the story in snippets like flashbacks, but through the journals of the two men using voice-overs. And OMG! is Hugh Jackman's voice-over ever the sexiest thing around. Well, the forty-five seconds where he's wandering around w/o a shirt on is pretty hot too - but anyway...
Back to the film - Angier's double - Root (I think that's how his name is spelled) - is damn-near the funniest character in the movie! He has horrid teeth, bad facial scruff (not the sexy kind), bad hair, bad clothes and he's a drunk. Cutter does a remarkable job of cleaning him up and teaching him to act like Angier. When he first walks out on the stage to show Angier what he can do, Root does a FABULOUS Hugh-esque tripping over his own feet performance and it's bloody hilarious! (My friend actually leaned over and said 'He probably actually tripped there.' *snort*) Then Root steps into walking and moving just like Angier and, aside from being an insufferable drunk, impresses Angier... until Angier realizes that he has to take his bows from beneath the stage because Root is The Prestige of the trick. Whoops...
Then there's Root's betrayal and the part where Borden trusses him up and dangles him from the ceiling, thus ending Angier's performance of "the Transported Man" for a time and giving Angier a bit of a limp from a busted knee.
Thus Angier makes his sojourn to Colorado Springs to seek out one Nikola Tesla (who, OMG, looks so little like David Bowie it's almost scary!). Tesla creates the apparatus that will launch Angier to the forefront of the magical community. The 'transporting man' machine - the secret to this machine is that it doesn't actually transport anything, it creates a copy and can have it appear anywhere one desires, thus making it the one trick none of the other magicians would ever be able to figure out w/o being told - becomes the basis for the climax of The Great Danton's shows. It's a huge display of electrical energy that seems to make Angier disappear from the stage and reappear elsewhere in the theater.
Borden, during one performance, gets himself on stage, then manages to get backstage to take a look at what goes on to make the trick work, because it's been frustrating him that he couldn't figure out how Angier could move 50 metres in under 50 seconds. He learns the secret, but doesn't realize it b/c of the way the appartus works and thus, since he didn't act fast enough, he is charged with the murder of Robert Angier.
Okay - I think that's most of the plot pieces... my brain's starting to shut down so I'll move on...
One key thing to take from this movie, this story is that the main characters - Borden and Angier - are NOT 'good guys'. They are the protagonists of the story, but they are NOT nice guys. They are, however, very human - and that's why the story works so well. These two MEN do things that people would do - spiteful, selfish people, real people. Borden is responsible for Julia's death, thus Angier does what he can to discover Borden's secrets; Borden retaliates and the feud goes on for YEARS and doesn't end until one of them is dead. Even then it doesn't end - Angier is dead and Borden is in prison, sentenced to be hanged; but Lord Caldlow is alive and Borden is trying to find a way to care for his daughter. (Confused yet? Good. *g*) Borden is hanged and Caldlow reveals to Cutter the secret of the Tesla machine, but as Angier is preparing to be rid of it, Borden appears and shoots him and thus does Borden learn the secret of Angier's trick and Angier learns the secret of Borden's trick - Cutter was right all along and Angier was too arrogant to believe him.
Neither of these men is the 'good guy' who should win in the end - and neither of them does. That's the point - the feud between them made them both very ugly, unhappy men. If they'd reconciled their differences, this might not have been the tragedy that it was.
Don't get me wrong - I loved the book, I loved the movie! I wouldn't change a thing. I like that they're not good guys and that they don't 'win' in the end - that's what makes the story so damned interesting and exciting! It doesn't have a happy ending. I like it that way.
