Now You See Me

2013 magical heist movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Four magicians are brought together for criminal purposes. An FBI guy, a French chick, and a debunker of magicians try to catch up with them.

I hated this movie. I hated every twist and turn, I hated its artificiality, I hated the CGI magic tricks, and I hated the music. It all starts out intriguing enough with the characters being introduced and then drawn together, a first 1/3 of their magically criminal or criminally magical act that flashes and intrigues, and the spawning of a mystery. But this is the perfect example of a movie that just keeps getting worse and worse as it goes, like a snowball of suck rolling down a mountain.

It's too bad because I thought I was going to like this once those characters were introduced. Things were ultra-flashy and modern, but Eisenberg's character pulled off a card trick where I actually saw the card I was supposed to while sitting on my couch, Harrelson does a funny hypnosis bit, and Isla Fisher is devoured by piranhas. Those characters are never developed, yet they still somehow manage to become more and more unlikable as their story moves along. And after a while, you realize this is going to be all glitz and dazzle without any depth whatsoever. I guess that kind of makes it like your typical magic show. A guy pulls a rabbit out of his ass, people applaud, and everybody goes home wondering whether it meant anything. Nothing really matters here, and all those twists and turns--and especially the giant reveal that takes place after the other three or four giant reveals in this--don't really make sense when you step back and take a good look at this thing.

It was very disappointing. I don't even think I'd heard of this movie until seeing a preview for a sequel despite having what you'd probably call a movie blog of nearly professional quality and being Jesse Eisenberg's number one fan. The mash-up of magic and criminal heists seems like something that could have been a home run. This movie is unfortunately the equivalent of a magician actually sawing a woman in half.

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