Now You See Me

“Now You See Me” is a magic trick wrapped in a magic trick comprised of many tiny magic tricks.  The movie charms you into watching its right hand while doing the magic with its left, constantly asking you to pick a card and don’t look closely because you’ll miss it.  Like any good magic show it keeps its secrets close to its chest and takes you for a ride that will tease your brain and leave you wondering how they did it.  This movie is plot strong and character weak, but just like a “randomly” selected audience member the player isn’t as important as the magic itself. 

The strength of the characters rests on the actors alone, which is why they picked such talented actors as Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Woody Harrelson to name a few.  The writers don’t take time to develop any of the characters, which I would normally complain about (and I’m not exactly NOT complaining today), but I don’t think the point of the movie was to have deep characters.  This movie feels like a two hour magic trick.  We, as the audience, aren’t supposed to think or worry too much about the characters, but instead we are supposed to be entertained by the magic.  This movie doesn’t drive forward because of the characters.  It drives forward because we want to see the next trick and, more importantly, the big prestige at the end of the movie. (See what I did there?) The only truly interesting character throughout the film for me was Alma Dray, played by the beautiful Melanie Laurent.  She, to me, was the most human element of the film as she studies books on magic to better understand the criminals she is chasing.

The “Four Horsemen” were well cast and plenty of chemistry in the few scenes we get to see them in as most of the movie revolves around Dylan Rhodes.  Jesse Eisenberg basically reprises his role from The Social Network, but without the buried emotions, with J. Daniel Atlas.  Isla Fischer does a good job as Altas’ old assistant and Dave Franco makes a believable young and upcoming magician.  My favorite of the Four Horsemen has to be Woody Harrelson, but he’s one of my favorite actors how could he not be?  Harrelson gives his character actual emotions other than self-satisfied smirks and a know-it-all attitude.

All in All, “Now You See Me” does what a movie should do, it entertains.  It will never be as powerful as ‘The Prestige” because it doesn’t challenge the audience or give them complex characters to root for, but it does keep one guessing.  I wouldn’t categorize it as a mindless flick that you need to turn off your brain to see, in fact I think the most fun I took from the movie was trying to guess the big scheme, but it definitely doesn’t belong among the greats.  “Now You See Me” is an intriguing premise that keeps you guessing all the way through, but never becomes amazing.  But the thing about magic is, no matter who’s on stage, as long as the trick is good and the magician doesn’t give away his secrets the audience will always be entertained.