Magician films are few and far between but it seems that when they do decide to show up they always come in pairs. The last go around was The Illusionist and The Prestige and this year’s double feature started with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and now ends with Louis Leterrier’s crime thriller, Now You See Me.
Now You See Me follows a group of magicians who make it big on the Las Vegas strip after acting as street magicians nearly a year ago. Ready to take their act to the next level, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) tell their audience they are going to rob a bank during their show and once they succeed they reward their audience with the money they’ve stolen. While law enforcement agencies are baffled with how they pulled this heist off, the foursome are now being tracked by FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent) as well as a former magician turned trick exposer Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) in an attempt to capture, expose and convict the illusionists.
Most of Now You See Me is easy going, sometimes mindless, typical popcorn fun that’s generic enough to entertain the masses while also giving them a little brain stimulation as they try to figure out the mysteries of the heists. The film is fueled by both a strong supply of arrogance from its cast as well as the ridiculous tricks they manage to pull off.
As I mentioned, most of the movie is stupid fun but the movie nearly digs and then buries itself in its own grave. The big reveal that comes at the end of the film works momentarily but then the dialogue and actions that follow make it absolutely ridiculous, illogical, pathetic and shameful. I don’t want to ruin anything but I will say there is a high probability that most of the audience will laugh at some point within the last five to 10 minutes of the film and it won’t be at something you should be laughing at.
What I did like about the film is that the magicians tell you right from the start, and repeatedly I might add, that the closer you look, the less you’ll see. This is a ‘see the big picture’ con and if you are able to avoid being pulled into all the distractions you’ll be able to figure out most of the tricks. I know I was able to figure one of them out rather easily because there was a similar heist tactic SPOILER that was used in Inside Man END SPOILER that you could pick up on as long as you stayed focus and weren’t pulled into the film. This is a movie you don’t want to be engaged with if you want to figure it out and, in that way, that’s what makes it brilliant because it can easily suck you in to distract you from what you should be seeing.
Like most magic movies, Now You See Me relies on the art of deception and that is its strongest attribute. The cast is mostly charismatic with all the laughs coming from good ol’ Woody Harrelson but thankfully the crew is able to execute the film with ease. It isn’t the most complex movie but it sure isn’t like watching your neighborhood magician. Overall, Now You See Me is a mostly enjoyable but eventually forgettable summer film that does its job of entertaining and that’s about it.
Rating: An entertaining but eventually forgettable movie experience (5.6/10)
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