The Prestige (HD DVD)

The Movie.....
Nolan was brought to everyone's attention with the cryptic mystery thriller "Memento" in 2000. Since then he has done Pacino flick "Insomnia" in 2001 and restarted the Batman franchise with "Batman Begins". Batman Begins had less of a director stamp on it than the other two. Insomnia and Memento have a fractured narrative editing style. He wasn't afraid to jump freely between flashback and flashforward, or in the case of Insomnia to follow Pacino's jumps of time while he was passed out. What he learned whilst making those films he has clearly carried over to The Prestige. But on a lighter level. He jumps around in time with aplomb but never leaves the viewer confused. Thus the film unfolds sort of backwards, sort of not. Much like one of those naughty magicians he shows you the trick of the story, then tracks back and shows you how it was done. The main selling point of this film is intended to be it's "twists". You'll probably work it out if you really aim to watch the film and break it. But I would say don't worry about that. The unfolding of what's happened is a great journey. It's best viewed semi switched off.

The HD DVD itself....
This is the first UK HD DVD I have purchased. My previous HD DVD buys have been US imports. I've rented loads of UK discs and own about 20. I suspect this is fairly commons presently, and because this film isn't out on HD DVD in the states I would think this UK Warner Release will sell like hot cakes..
For a first home ground purchase this couldn't be a better movie. It's one I regretted missing at the cinema.
The US Blu-Ray release is widely regarded as a great transfer. I was apprehensive about Warner Bros matching that with this UK version. I wasn't disappointed, it's very good. It has verging on reference levels of detail (eg. You can see which direction the cloth's nap lays on Michael Cain's Bowler Hat) and it has some strong black levels. From the way Nolan has shot the film, many of the interior scenes have a very narrow depth of focus, meaning back grounds aren't more than a blur. But once the film opens up for the stage performances there is a great sense of depth. When the electrical bolt visual effects come along they are super crisp and clean. Also there isn't any film damage, the source is in great shape.
While the audio isn't lossless, the Dolby Digital Plus track is very nice, speech is a smooth and a reasonable level. This film is dialogue heavy with some light orchestration from time to time. The surrounds come to life when the electrical arching and crashing effects start going off. There is a good sense of the room the effects are happening in, very immersive with the sub handling the echos.
While the back of the box states that the extras are in 480i/p. The 20 minutes of interviews, which are very well made by the way, are in full 1080p. The stills gallery is also in 1080p, and there are some lovely shots to look through... The extra's are the same as the US Blu-Ray...

To sum up...
A great HD DVD and a great movie.

Very Good Movie, very well acted, directed, twist and turns are fanatstic, but just felt a bit cheated by the Hugh Jackman story **ANGLE**. Defor one of the better movies of the last few years tho.

The Prestige for me was one of the best films of last year, following after Batman Begins, I was hoping the Prestige would be just as good, and I wasn't disappointed.

The story of two rival magicians who's path cross as they grow more competitive is pretty gripping and entertaining. What makes The Prestige work so well for me is how it is set up for its ending, which is a real surprise and is brilliantly revealed, in fact I had to watch it again just to get it.

The performances from Hugh Jackman and Christina Bale are both excellent, and Michael Caine also deserves credit here for playing the quintissential cockney ingenieur so well and Scarlett Johansson deserves credit for her small role in the film too.

The HD DVD itself is a bit short on extras but the featurettes on making the film are quite interesting and the transfer of the film itself is first class, nice and crisply detailed. It stands as one of the more visually impressive HD DVD releases out there.

The Prestige is a great a film and on HD DVD its even better than standard def, I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.

Excellent movie, great story, great picture quality and great sound. I bought this as a lind buy as neer seen this movie before and on HD DVD it delivers.

As several reviewers have already commented this is an excellent period drama/thriller from a first-rate director which follows the obsessive and tragic lives of two magicians, "The Great Danton" (Jackman) and "The Professor" (Bale) who are keen to out-do each other's tricks and learn each other's secrets. It gets a bit convoluted in places but if you enjoyed "The Illusionist" then you'll probably be well entertained by "The Prestige". There are also good supporting roles by Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie.

I think some movies lend themselves exceedingly well to the HD treatment; others (such as this one in my opinion) while still delivering excellent quality, perhaps do not showcase the format quite as well. The reasons for this are mainly stylistic e.g. Nolan uses 'soft focus' techniques throughout the movie and while a blurred background looks very nice in HD, its still a blurred background and therefore cannot show off surrounding detail. Some scenes are also at night-time or shot in low-lighting conditions. For much of the movie I felt I was just watching a very good, high bit-rate regular DVD, but then when certain scenes kicked in (like the various snowy landscapes or Tesla's megavolt machine & laboratory) you could instantly see that this was definitely in HD.