Every now and again a movie comes along featuring the mind blowing world of magic acts and the latest to hit the cinemas is the Louis Leterrier (Transporter, Clash of the Titans) directed, Now You See Me. It’s like the magic circle trying to remind us that it can still impress in spite of the reality that most of us recognise that what we’re seeing is a carefully laid out trick.
This is also Now You See Me’s intent with the production as the lay out the mirrors in the storyline and string up the plot to fool the audience, and while it’s genuinely successful in that respect you’re still left with the feeling that you needed to see more. There are some very cool stunts, magic tricks and CGI effects, which helps to make the film an entertaining watch, but it doesn’t go much further than that as a few points let it down, preventing to from being a genuine misdirection.
The story sees four magicians, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), as they are selected to be potential entrants into an ancient magical order called The Eye. They spend a year out of action only to return as a supergroup called The Four Horsemen, to wow the international stage, sponsored by millionaire, Arthur Tressler – played well by Michael Cane (The Dark Knight Rises).
However, their magic act is like no other with their first big stunt seeing them teleport a hypnotised guest from the audience to his bank in Paris to steal €4 million. This gets the attention of FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) who gets paired with Interpol agent, Alma Drey (Mélanie Laurent) who lock themselves on to a mission to bring the Horsemen down.
Jessie Eisenberg (To Rome With Love) plays the slick magician geek leader pretty well, covering the smarter than thou bases with good dialogue and delivery. Woody Harrelson (Hunger Games) isn’t too far behind as the all knowing Mentalist. Dave Franco is pretty cool too with a convincing performance in general and some smart fight moves and free running skills.
Isla Fisher (The Great Gatsby) is underwhelming though with her voice and mannerisms ill suiting the role of a big stage magic act. Her whoops and shouts are a bit unnecessary and take the edge off the Horsemen’s potential to impress. On the other hand, Morgan Freeman plays the magician busting TV personality, Thaddeus Bradley, with faultless weighting as ever.
The real focal point is Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers) as Agent Rhodes who goes from sharp dialogue with the detained Horsemen in one scene to a killer car chase or a fight scene with the very talented Franco in another. His moody routine is OK, but doesn’t really make you buy into the character well, especially after the weird arm grabbing scene with Alma Drey.
It’s an issue that the entire film suffers from as you struggle to really care that much for any of the characters, which leaves you with a feeling of ambivalence about what actually happens. The only real exception to this is Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) who brings the clever Interpol agent role to life with charm and whit.
While Now You See Me doesn’t manage to impress on every level, it’s still an entertaining film to watch, especially if you’re a bit of a magic circle fan. The problem is that the cool tricks, good dialogue, great stunts and star studded cast fail to make up for characters that aren’t strong enough to really draw you in and a storyline that doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Now You See Me review: 3.3/5
