The return of intelligent sci-fi

Prior to the success of last year’s Inception, big science fiction films had mostly struggled at the box office, meaning there was a huge reluctance to commit budget to the genre. The exception was movies with plots aimed at 12-year-old boys, which involved lots of CGI action, explosions and a script that wouldn’t leave half…

Film review: The Prestige

(PG13) Dir Christopher Nolan US 2006. ‘Are you watching closely?’ Michael Caine asks in the opening scene of this film, before explaining that every classic magic trick has three acts. First is ‘the pledge’, where the magician shows you something ordinary. Then comes ‘the turn’ when he’ll make the ordinary do something extraordinary but that’s…