Now You See Me: Movie Review


"Now You See Me" elates itself in the idea of a huge trick that caps off every single, mini trick that was made throughout a whole show. Indeed, the film wants the audience into believing that fact is gonna happen. With a great premise on-hand, at times it feels that it does. But once the final act is revealed and the true twist of the story is shown, we felt like fools. The film, as you can easily surmise, fails to fulfill that promise as it finds itself confused and failing hard to make a compelling experience with its own need to be elaborate.

Four magicians are brought together by a mysterious figure to perform acts that have never been done before on stage. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) make up the group and one year later, perform in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen" sponsored by Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine). On their first major show, the Four Horsemen invite a member of the audience to help them in their finale - robbing a bank. The man is apparently teleported to his bank in Paris, where he activates an airduct which vacuums up the money and showers it onto the crowd in Las Vegas. Indeed the money is gone and as the FBI and the Interpol investigate further, the group continues with daring tricks that not only defy their audience but also cheat and steal from the corrupt rich.

"Now You See Me" has an incredible premise that will hook you up from the get-go. The idea of magic, illusions and a mysterious figure with the promise of "The Eye" to our four protagonists have you wanting to know more and more as the minutes roll-by. Unfortunately, the film fails to work on that premise further than just making the film more interesting than it should be. After the first half, you soon realize that the film will not attempt to develop its main characters than the most basic details we know from the first five minutes or so. The film rather tries to push the story forward with magic trick upon magic trick (or three magic shows that always targets someone or something). The most frustrating part though is how the film pushes this idea of a humongous reveal but it utterly fails to be a compelling one. And ironically, the final reveal feels like a cop-out and the complete opposite of the elaborateness it exudes the whole 90 minutes or so. In the end, "Now You See Me" is an entertaining film for sure but the rather disappointing ending completely destroys what should have been a greater film than what we have now.

Rating: 3 reels





Why you should watch it:
- entertaining while it lasts

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the ending was a complete cop-out and a mess



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