Up to this point, directors had one of two options available if they wanted to successfully incorporate stage magic as the central premises of their films and have it not be tacky; Either make it a period piece ( The Prestige or The Illusionist) or make it a screwball “comedy” (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone).
Now a third option has been added to the plate; just re-dress the whole thing as a sleek, sexy heist movie. At its heart, Now You See Me is really just that. Not that that’s to the film’s demerit…
Director Louis Leterrier (the Transporter series, The Incredible Hulk) is luckily no stranger to handling shaky premises, and as far as premises go, struggling stage magicians turned to crack bank robbers using illusions is a bit of a doozy. But he handles it in stride with the same techniques that have worked so well in his previous movies: keep the action rolling, the dialogue snappy, and the camera moving.
J. D. Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), a Vegas illusionist, Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), an escape artist, Merritt Mckinney (Woody Harrelson), a mentalist, and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), a street magician, are summoned by a mysterious benefactor to be given blueprints for a strange machine and explicit instructions for what to do once it’s finished.
A mere year later, they’ve emerged as The Four Horsemen, rockstar super-magicians extraordinary, and manage to successfully steal the hearts of America, millions of euros in a bank thousands of miles away, and the attention of the FBI all on their first performance What follows is a thrilling game of cat and mouse as FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol detective Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent), try to figure out how the quartet pulled of their trick and how to stop them before they strike again.
Now You See Me plays fast and loose with movie logic, keeping the action tight and the one-liners coming before things get too implausible. The actor’s chemistry really gel together, and the movie does a good job of balancing the plotting of the Horsemen with the detective work of the agents.
The great bit of sleight of hand that Leterrier pulls is setting the audience up to believe that this will basically be Ocean’s 11 with punk magician instead of A-list millionaires, when in actuality the majority of the story is centered on Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent’s character’s. And this turns out to be an unexpected but enjoyable surprise, as opposed to the ending, which is a very unexpected surprise.
It’s this ending which may be the single damning thing about the film. Now You See Me, doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a flashy, funny, heist movie. But the way each magic trick is rationally explained, each relationship developed, and each unrevealed presented, certainly hints at there being some clever writing on board. So it’s simply downright depressing when the final reveal at the end of the movie, seems to be an ass pull out of nowhere that unravels the whole damn thing more effectively than David Copperfield showing you how the rabbit got in the hat.
Now You See Me is fun, sleek, enjoyable, and at times, even a little clever. And as long as you don’t try to peer too hard behind the curtain (or more accurately, leave before the last 20 minutes), there’s nothing to take you away from simply enjoying the show for what it is on the surface.
