Now You See Me (2013)

“The closer you think you are, the less you'll actually see.”

            I think magic is very interesting. It is cool how the magician fools the minds of the audience. Now You See Me shows modern magic fooling the eyes and minds of modern audiences both in the movie itself and the ones watching.

            J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are all magicians of some sort. Atlas is an actual magician, Henley does illusions like pretending to be killed by piranhas in a tank but in reality she is alright standing outside the tank, Merritt is a mentalist, and Jack is a pickpocket. They all get a tarot card as an invitation to an apartment in New York City. When they enter the apartment it is empty until they come to a room. When they hit a switch in the room digital plans for a magic show appear.

            A year later, Daniel, Henley, Merritt, and Jack are known as the Four Horsemen and have their own show in Las Vegas.  At the show is a man named Thaddeus (Morgan Freeman) who makes it mission to debunk all the tricks magicians use. He has had TV specials and DVDs all on the subject. At the show the Four Horsemen pick a Frenchman out of the audience and tell him that they are going to rob his bank. Through some sort of machine on stage they “transport” the man to his bank in Paris. They make it look like the money has been sucked into a vent and it shows up at the show in Vegas.

            After this trick the FBI is put on the case. Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is assigned to investigate along with Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent). The Four Horsemen drag Dylan and Alma and the FBI on a wild goose chase from Vegas, to New Orleans, and finally to New York City using magic, illusion, and mentalism.

            The ending is huge WTF and really poorly explained and thought out. To me it made no sense whatsoever.

            The cast was good. Jesse Eisenberg I am not too much of a fan of, he is not bad but there is something I cannot like about him. Isla Fisher and Dave Franco are barely in the movie which is a total shame. Fisher is a good actress and her character seemed very interesting and she was almost completely cut out of the movie. The same goes for Franco. Melanie Laurent was wasted in this movie. Throughout the movie much kept being made that her character had never been out in the field before and she was working desk when she got the job but there was no explanation of why she was chosen. But she was wonderful with what she was given and how her character was developed. Laurent is a great actress I would like to see her in better movies than this. Mark Ruffalo I felt was wasted too. Michael Cain was only in the movie for like five minutes. Morgan Freeman’s character did too much when he should only been used for the purpose of revealing magicians’ tricks. I wish the cast could be put into a better movie they all worked well together and it was just a waste for all of them to be in.

            Now You See Me had too much going on and not too many things were explained either at all or properly. There were too many big name actors and most of them got tossed to the side. The story did not seem to be thought through too well. The big problem there is no focus. It felt like the writers wanted to show too much and they made the story feel schizophrenic. At the beginning it was all about the characters and their magic and then less than half way through it focused too much about all the magicians being a few steps ahead of the FBI and about how Dylan began to fall for Alma. The ending sucked it did not explain anything and it ended on characters that should have been in the background. Now You See Me has too much going on to be a good movie. Let me just say I spared you almost two hours of your life by watching and reviewing this.