PLOT: In 19th century London, two magicians carry on a bitter lifelong feud that culminates in one being charged with the other's murder.

After Memento and Batman Begins, dark, non-linear trickery and mind-screwing are becoming known as Christopher Nolan's shtik.

But better to be stereotyped for smart and challenging work than for, say, mindless action films.

Case in point: The Prestige, Nolan's take on a hate-fueled competition between two 19th-century magicians. Taken from the novel (and scripted by Nolan), it bounces seamlessly from the present to the past and back again while juggling magic, science, trickery and lies, creating a mood that transcends the story.

That story is a simple blood feud between Wolverine and Batman, if you will. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, a pair of magician's assistants/audience-plants destined for greatness, and tragically split when a knot-tying incident (accident?) leads to the death of Angier's wife in a botched trick.

Vowing revenge, Angier attains same by maiming his former friend, only to spur him on to counter-revenge, and so on. Their Spy vs. Spy act is complicated by the fact that each represents something the other is not. Borden is a genius at inventing tricks but less than a brilliant showman. Angier can "sell" any trick but is dull in conceiving them.

I should mention The Prestige begins with Angier's own apparent death in a stunt gone awry, and the arrest of Borden for his murder. (The title refers to the stages of your classic trick -- The Pledge, The Turn and The Prestige).

All that subsequently unfurls -- Borden marrying and fathering a child, Angier falling in love with his assistant (Scarlett Johansson) -- is window-dressing for their poisonous dance, save for one subplot.

Tossed into this spirited soup about the nature of lies and trickery is Nikola Tesla (David Bowie), the famed physicist, and his assistant (Andy Serkis), sending Frankenstein-like sparks flying all around their lab in Colorado Springs (a town that has given Tesla refuge in return for wiring them up with electricity). Tesla, hiding from the apparently murderous agents of Thomas Edison, throws "real" magic, aka science, into the mix.

Normally, a lot of actors doing non-native accents (Bale's Cockney, Bowie's Serbian, Johansson's Londoner, Serkis' N'Yawk) would be a distraction, but they're all colourfully delivered (save Johansson's; she seems overmatched). This is, after all, a movie about things being what they're not.

And if the "explanatory" ending seems prosaic, so are most magic tricks once you know the secret. If The Prestige is a bit of an entertaining cheat, well, that's what you're paying for.

BOTTOM LINE: More mind-bending, non-linear storytelling from the director of Memento, full of trickery, spiraling schemes and colourful performances -- from Bale & Jackman to Michael Caine as a career "trick inventor" to David Bowie as physicist Nikola Tesla. Dark.

(This film is rated PG)
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