Bad Movie Knights, I have failed you once again. Not since Angel of Destruction has this Knight been bettered by a truly awful piece of cinema.... but that day has come once again. There are few features that can try my patience to a limit where I must retrieve a remote control, and turn off a film by propelling said device through the delicate viewing membrane of my 60" 1080i HDTV Samsung Flatscreen television. The Prestige has become the second film that has earned the honor of that few bad films have achieved..... the status of being unwatchable.

Firstly, how is such a feat possible? The Prestige stars Hugh Jackman, and Christian Bale, the same two gentlemen who in recent years have brought the comic book icons Wolverine and Batman to the big screen..... and made my nipples quake with pleasure. We also find our friend and lover Michael Caine, starring as an engineer in this bad movie. So where did it go wrong? Either this DVD was designed to pump chloroform into the air as it played, or this is the most tedious, and mundane screenplay ever written. Holy shit.

What did I gather from the brief 45 minutes of the movie I did see? Two asholes (played by the aforementioned Jackman and Bale) are magician understudies, and during an escapist trick (involving Jackman's wife.... I don't know the character's name because I was so uninterested.....nor have I looked them up, because my interest level while writing the review is on life support) Jackman's wife is killed on stage, to his suspicion through the fault of Bale. After that the movie is a variety of poorly woven flashbacks, flashforwards, and flashsideways of Jackman and Bale showing up in disguise at each other's solo performances and sabotaging their shows on stage.

The Prestige did teach me one valuable lesson however. Go rent The Illusionist starring Ed Norton instead.

Hamlin Grade: