Movie Review: Now You See Me
Now You See Me is a movie about four magicians who rob a bank on stage, as part of their act. They pick a random member of the audience, bring him on stage, transport him to a bank vault in France (they are in Las Vegas), and bring him back in seconds with all the money from the vault, and give that money to the audience members. You find out pretty quickly how they did it (there is a logical explanation), but that is just one of a three part act.
Louis Leterrier directed. He’s behind such amazing pieces of art as Transporter 2 and Clash of the Titans. I think they could have done better. The camera movment is distracting, as is the constant upbeat soundtrack, which sounds like something they just found on some generic music website and slapped on at the last minute.
The magicians are played by Jesse Eisenberg, best known for The Social Network. Woody Harrelson, best known for his work on Cheers in the 80’s, plays a mind reader. Isla Fisher, from Wedding Crashers, and James Franco’s brother are also there. Mark Ruffalo plays a detective trying to catch them before they do more magic tricks. Morgan Freeman and Michael Cane (no movie is complete these days without at least one of these guys in the cast) play a couple of old guys who also hang around sometimes.
The movie is filled with twists are turns that keep the audience on its toes. I’m not sure that I like movies about magicians becoming its own genre. The Prestige, The Illisionist, another movie called The Illisionist, and now this. The Prestige, in my opinion, is by far my favorite of these movies, but I think I’ve had enough magician movies for a while. There are some really fun moments in Now You See Me, and overall it’s pretty good. Watching James Franco’s brother beat up two cops was cool. And the twist at the end did come out of nowhere to me.
If you like magic, and you like movies about magic, I think you’ll probably like Now You See Me.
Grade: B