Now You See Me (2013)

I don’t like magic. That is, I don’t like magicians in my face picking on me and making me look stupid. I get embarrassed and I don’t like feeling embarrassed. This being a film, I considered myself safe.

Now You See Me is about four magicians who come together as The Four Horsemen – a spectacular Vegas show incorporating various aspects of magic whose grand finale involves the robbing of a bank in Paris. This stunt of course lands them in trouble with the FBI and Interpol, who don’t take kindly to the theft of many millions of Euros and spend the entire film trying to work out how on earth they did it when they were clearly in Vegas the entire time!

While it started well, and there are some quite clever bits, the use of ‘magic’ very quickly gives way to the use of CGI and lighting effects, which as common as they are in modern entertainment made it much less impressive. I would also say that that’s cheating to use CGI for magic tricks but perhaps that’s what modern illusions are – I wouldn’t claim to be an expert. It seems a bit easy compared to the subtleties of slight of hand or misdirection though.

Now You See Me is an entertaining and fun film. Most importantly, it’s harmless. There’s nothing really special about it but it entertained me on an otherwise boring mid-week evening. Jessie Eisenburg (The Social Network) wasn’t too annoying, although he played his usual awkward geeky character. Michael Caine was quite cool. Morgan Freeman was very cool. Mélanie Laurent played her usual sweet ‘not as stupid as I look’ French blonde girl and I think it’s a shame that that’s all she really is in this. Inglorious Bastards and Beginners – both fantastic films – gave her more to play with and a real character to get into. Everyone else was a bit negligible, which is a shame for Mark Ruffalo (Avengers Assemble, Shutter Island) who is supposed to be one of the main characters. It’s a shame for Isla Fisher also whose role seemed to boil down to ‘hot girl in a fish tank’. Maybe the success of Gatsby will let her choose some more interesting parts in the future.

My only one big problem with this film is my usual big problem. This film is about slick stunts, cool bank robberies, and the odd car chase. It doesn’t need any more than that. So why the half-arsed attempt at a love story? It’s not done properly and it’s completely unnecessary. Grrr!