When this film came out it didn't appeal to me at all (and wasn't there another similar sounding film about magiclans that came out around the same time further muddying the waters?), but over the years since its reputation seems to have grown and grown. I read about it on some list of major headfuck films (strangely enough?) - and then the other day I saw this thread and had an empty afternoon and so I decided to take the plunge....
And, well it was OK. I enjoyed a lot about including the plausible mundanity of the majority of the tricks - what's that film, also with Michael Caine, and Jesse Eisenberg with a group of ultrasmug Robin Hood-hearted masterthief magicians doing utterly ridiculous stuff? It's hateful. But anyway yeah The Prestige avoided that... and I have to admit it kinda got in my head and I thought about it a lot afterwards... but I had a few gripes, mainly for a film about magic etc it seemed kinda too predictable. There just weren't many "ooooooh ahhh" type moments, most of the 'twists' were of the kind where you knew basically what was gonna happen even if you weren't sure exactly how.
Whatever, it had something, Bale looks increasingly like an (even?) uglier Tom Cruise, Caine was surprisingly solid and there was a certain pleasing moral ambiguity in that the goodish guy wasn't that good and the baddy wasn't THAT bad, plus it was nice to see The Dame even if his Tesla seemed at times to have a weird hint of Scottish to hhis accent.
Speaking of Bale's plainness, is it really plausible that Sir Peter Hall's daughter and Scarlett Johanson would fall for him so completely?
Couple of other thing - or I agree that Nolan can't quite pull it off - SPOILER OK I can believe that Lord Caldwell could pretend to be someone else in many circumstances, but how is it that he's married and his wife doesn't even know? And there were things like the duplicating machine, as far as I could see the original hat stayed in the same place and a new one was created elsewhere- hence there being so many - but when he uses it on stage it's the original guy whi is transported and the new one who remains inn the machine to fall through the trapdoor to his death.... sleight of hand or just a cock-up we weren't supposed to spot?