Magic shows have managed to keep their audiences enthralled for centuries, that is good magic shows. How did they do it? How big was the illusion? In more extreme cases, will someone get hurt? Magicians are like artists, living their whole lives for that one big trick, their life’s work aiming for that big reveal.
Well, at least that’s what Hollywood would have you believe. Films like Christopher Nolan’s the Prestige stressed to the viewer that only was the actual act important, the magician’s entire life was one big performance. Nothing existed to the magician outside of his tricks, his whole being depended on it.
Now You See Me certainly has a hard act to follow in the Prestige. Although the Illusionist and Death Defying Acts made appearances around the same time, the Prestige pulled off a trick that many would have struggled to guess at the outset, but without the cheesy frills that normally go along with a magic film. The Prestige was in another league, a film with heart and an unbelievable cast.
The film opens with introductions to the four characters which the film will revolve around. After pulling off some of their finest tricks, they are recruited by a anonymous individual to pull off a huge operation. Behind their facade of hugely popular magic shows, the group, now known as the Four Horsemen, embark on some particularly well-executed bank robberies.
When they pull of a huge heist in France while selling it to the audience as a magic trick, Mark Ruffalos’ FBI agent Dylan Rhodes and new partner Interpol’s Alma Dray are sent out to stop the group before they pull off their next operation. Keeping an eye on their every move is Morgan Freeman’s Thaddeus, an ex-magician whose show attempts to reveal how magicians create their tricks. With the entire world closely watching, the group still have to pull off their biggest heist yet, and so begins a fairly extended cat and mouse game.
The important thing to keep in mind while viewing Now You See Me is you must not take the entire affair seriously or think about the plot too much, the film is far less clever than it thinks it is and can be found out in less than ten minutes into its starting time.
Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of cast members, no one actor really stands out. Ruffalo is unfortunately that cop character that he seems to embrace a lot while the wonderful Melanie Laurent is severely underused. Eisenberg is the best of the magicians we meet, Harrelson another actor who is not used to his full potential. On the other hand, it is nice to see the charming Isla Fisher in a starring role, although she doesn’t really prove much to us.
The main selling point for Now You See Me is spectacle, the tricks that they perform gloss over a fairly unsubstantial and underdeveloped plot. Many have commented that in the end, there is no big reveal, rather a rather predictable finish.
And there is nothing worse than a predictable magic trick…
