Now You See Me

Now You See Me, Thriller, 2013

Plot: An FBI agent tracks down a  group of four magicians who perform acts that are highlighted by some sort of robbery.

Thoughts: What could have been a phenomenal take on the heist genre, ended up being a poor man’s Ocean’s Eleven (the George Clooney version).

I struggled to think about what I actually liked about this film and the one thing I came up with was the cast of talented actors: the consistently underrated Woody Harrelson, the obnoxious Jesse Eisenberg, talented Isla Fisher, up-and-coming Dave Franco, lovable Michael Caine, and the always dramatic and wise  Morgan Freeman. Oh yeah, Mark Ruffalo was in it, too. . . am I the only person who doesn’t get what the big deal is around this guy?

Morgan Freeman “throwin’ his money on the flo'”

Aside from what appears to be an intriguing story backed by a dynamite cast, this movie was handled so poorly. The concept of magic, or as GOB would say “illusions”, is tricking the viewer with what they think they see. This movie didn’t have to do that because in a movie, the production team controls everything you see. There’s no chance to not look closer. That’s why they call TV and Film “magic”. This idea really taints some of the tricks and makes you focus more on the fact of being skeptical the entire time rather than being befuddled and amazed.

The main problem I had with this movie was the fact that nearly all of the scenes were plot-based. Good filmmakers and writers understand that a balance between character-driven and plot-driven scenes is crucial to get your audience into the world you’ve created. In this movie, the characters were just a vehicle to get to the next scene instead of the driving force. Out of the main characters there was only a handful of dialogue that would allow you to decipher something about them, they were shallow, two-dimensional people living in a flat world that seemed to revolve around magic. The depth that comes with little things like what soda the characters were drinking, the type of hat they are wearing, which of their hands is the dominant one, was missing.

We are four, non-distinct characters with generic backgrounds.

The lack of depth also hurt this movie because their was very little motivation for the next steps. When the characters you’re supposed to care most about end up being total sheep, it makes you feel pretty dumb.

The story structure was awkward, every act had twenty minutes of them pulling off a heist followed by fifteen minutes of explanation, tell me about repetitiveness. Also, what was up with act three? The last fifteen minutes of the movie was one character tying up all of the loose ends. . . they sure had a lot of time on their hands to travel like that.

He’s always angry. . .

All in all, this was a popcorn flick lacking true substance, it was nearly the antithesis of Iron Man 3 in terms of character vs. plot-based filmmaking. It’s ironic that this was a movie about magic since it seemed that this was just a big magic trick played on us, the audience. With their right hand the production distracted us with its shiny effects, semi-cerebral heists, and overused plot twists; while their other hand reaches in our pockets for ten bucks. Now that I think about it, the illusion that this was actually a clever film could have been a great movie all by itself. If this movie doesn’t flop too badly, look out for the sequel (which they were setting up the entire last act).

1.8/5

–Below this line is a list of questions that may be considered spoilers, don’t read if you hate spoilers!–

After watching the film, here are a few questions that remained:

• Since when does being a magician make you awesome at parkour and able to take down eight FBI agents?
• What was the deal with that last safe? The FBI just has safes hidden in the middle of New York City?
• I know he can make a lot of money, but why is someone in the insurance business a benefactor to a ragtag group of magicians?
• Who was that lady with Michael Caine the entire movie?
• So the director’s not gonna let us see what happens on the Carousel in Central Park? All of the time in the movie dedicated to “the Eye” and we’re not even going to get to see it?
• So the moral of the story is, the guys who did nothing wrong go to jail (ie Morgan Freeman)?