Now You See
Me is one of those high concept, star-studded, heist films with a “twist” and
is this film, that twist… is magic. Make no mistake though, this isn’t Harry
Potter, think more of Ocean’s 11 (although this movie is more on par with Ocean’s
12) only with intense card tricks, and of course other really impressive magic
tricks, like stealing all of a bank’s money.
It’s a shame
that this movie doesn’t work very well, because it has an interesting idea and
a very star-studded cast, but it leans too heavily on the whole “we’ve been
robbed by corporate so we’re taking it all back” Robin Hood type of concept.
Just like a
real magic show, this film tries to create an illusion, and the illusion is
that this movie is fun and exciting, and a real mystery, however, just like a
real magic show, if you look away from all the loud noise, you’ll notice it’s
just a trick. The film lacks substance, we never really know why these
characters are doing what they’re doing; for a minute here and there the movie
tries to dive into some backstory, but it’s poorly done and fleeting as well.
When the film finally does try and explain the reason for all of these
seamlessly well-executed heists, it fails miserably (more on that later).
A little
aside on the soundtrack: it’s ridiculous; the score feels like it’s urgently
trying to pump up the intensity, but in all the wrong places. There’s simply no
reason for epic music to play while the characters pile into a cab, then again
this whole movie tries way too hard so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
As is often
the case with magic tricks, once the film finally explains how our “Four
Horsemen” (this is the rather cliché name the magicians have for themselves)
pull off all of these tricks, the reality is rather mundane. Essentially, the
real reason these heists are pulled off is because of movie magic, editing and
CGI have more to do with these tricks than anything else, and it’s rather
obvious. Of course, we have Morgan Freeman to tell us how it all works, in yet
another “let me explain the movie to you” role (it seems to be all he does
these days).
Back to the
ending, it’s horrendous. It’s one of those twists that hasn’t earned the right
to be a twist it’s just something the writer tacked on to make things more “exciting.”
The twist doesn’t even blow your mind, or even leave you head-scratching; it’s
simply disappointing, much like this movie.
Random side
note: I know Dave Franco’s character is supposed to be really awesome at
sleight of hand or something like that because he can lift wallets and such,
but how exactly does that give him the magical ability to fight like Jason
Bourne? Also he knows parkour for some reason? None of it really makes sense
and the film doesn’t really appear to try and make sense of it either; the film
tries to play this approach off as “magic,” and pretends like it’s doing
something new, but in the end we’ve all seen this bag of tricks before.
-Ryan Maples
Rating: 5.
do more pl0x
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