Okay. Watched Pan's Labyrinth last night, which was incredible.

Then watched Children of Men this morning, and was blown. A. Way.

I've watched the behind the scenes stuff, so now I know, but we were sitting there for the car sequence wondering aloud: HOW THE F@$% DID THEY GET THAT SHOT?????

Wow.

Very good point, bon.

Spoilers below for both movies:

I think what bothers me about both movies is that the magicians in question ruined lives willy-nilly in pursuit of their (IMNSHO negligible) goals. What bothers me more about The Prestige is Borden/Fallon leading the double/single life and devaluing the loves of the women in that life by that process (it drives his wife to suicide, for pete's sake) and Angier sending a man he knows to be innocent to the gallows, not to mention all the other Angiers' deaths. The casualness of the physical destruction they wreak upon each other also angered me. The repeated theme of "people don't look too closely, they want the illusion" didn't do anything to mitigate the horror of these personalities.

I guess I'm a little more able to forgive The Illusionist because of Uhl's obvious delight at being suckered. Still, Eisenheim is not a sympathetic character - a prince dies and Uhl is disgraced because Eisenheim wants to be with his lady love.

Really, I've come away from both movies in the firm belief that magicians are sociopathic, which is not necessarily the case.

I think part of my reason for being so offended is that magicians are close kin to stage performers (it is said that Angiers is the best stage performer), and I dislike seeing "my" world in such an evil light. But I also just despise the main characters of all three. Also, out of all three, I think Edward Norton was the most interesting to watch.

Herein ends my rant.

preferred The Prestige, mainly for the cast.

Yes, but as you said, nothing's going to beat the mental plotline of Ziggy Stardust helps Wolverine beat Batman using the AWESOME POWER OF ELECTRICITY.

I really liked The Prestige. Perhaps not working it all out (I had maybe 50% of it figured, and hadn't tied even that together right) helped. Yes, the magicians were cruel and horribly callous--working out exactly how horrible Borden was (since I hadn't worked out all of his doubling) when Angier had been portrayed as more mindless and offhandedly cruel up until the reveal was a big part of my enjoyment.

I didn't like any of the characters that much, but I liked looking at what they were doing.

Never mustered that much interest in The Illusionist.

(And FTR, Franz-Ferdinand's life - and death - would make a much more interesting movie than either of the above.)

ITA. Actually, I'm surprised there haven't been more films set during WWI, considering the impact it had historically and the amazing backdrop it would give to even a basic love story/buddy film/generic drama.

I guess I'm a little more able to forgive The Illusionist because of Uhl's obvious delight at being suckered. Still, Eisenheim is not a sympathetic character - a prince dies and Uhl is disgraced because Eisenheim wants to be with his lady love.

I felt the opposite -- The Illusionist seemed to be pretending to be the nicer movie, and the hypocrisy annoyed me. The Prestige didn't seem to have any illusions (pardon) about the amorality of its leads.

Yes, but as you said, nothing's going to beat the mental plotline of Ziggy Stardust helps Wolverine beat Batman using the AWESOME POWER OF ELECTRICITY.

Well, true. I still want to see that movie, by the way.

Weird sidebar, but oddly enough we also rented Renoir's The Rules of the Game this week and Bob Bob had a hard time with it because he thought the characters were reprehensible. Neither of us had that reaction to The Prestige, though we could have. I think if the repeated sabotages had any point it was to show how they were habituating to becoming evil characters. Tesla, OTOH, didn't have much justification, and he bothered me for that reason.

Ziggy Stardust helps Wolverine beat Batman using the AWESOME POWER OF ELECTRICITY.

Don't forget, Ziggy's assistant was played by Gollum. While Batman's assistant was, um, well, Batman's assistant, unless you're willing to say he was also Carter from Get Carter.

More spoilers:

I disliked that The Prestige had to use Real Actual Magic to get out of the corner it painted itself into. I didn't like The Illusionist because the central trick seemed callous and obvious, but the Prestige was more callous, more obvious, and the only thing surprising about the reveal was that they had to violate all natural laws to get there AND they'd already shown you that they were willing to do so. Blah.

While Batman's assistant was, um, well, Batman's assistant, unless you're willing to say he was also Carter from Get Carter.

Alfie or Alfred, Michael can just can't keep way from that name.