Now You See Me
Director: Louis Leterrier
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo
Length: 115 minutes
Country: USA
I find that there is always a bit of problem when it comes to films centring on magicians and stage tricks as its premise. Whatever magic trick the audience witnesses can easily be constructed with CGI, and those that appear to be near impossible on the screen can then be easily dismissed by the line: ‘it’s just a movie’. In Now You See Me, most of the tricks are hardly a possibility for actual magicians. The only genuine trick is the standard card trick where Jesse Eisenberg’s character, Daniel Atlas, asks a member of his audience to choose a card and the chosen one comes up on the building behind him. It’s a trick that works on both audiences within and outside the film itself, effectively captivating us into the film’s slick glamour, glitter and gold.
Now You See Me is perhaps more reminiscent of the Oceans Trilogy than a magician-centred film like The Prestige. The film involves a team of illusionists known as the Four Horsemen, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), who are brought together by a mysterious figure. They become Robin Hood-esque characters pulling off bank heists during their performances, taking money from corrupt businessmen and giving them to people who were cheated. This results in an FBI agent, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), and an Interpol detective (Mélanie Laurent) trying to track them down, continually one step behind. It’s a game of cat-and-mouse throughout, with the typical summer-blockbuster car chase and explosions, and the more unusual ‘whodunit’ theme where the audience try to piece together a puzzle. Magic, therefore, becomes a secondary characteristic to the film’s feature of dazzling bank raids, misdirection, the blurring of who to root for with its slick shifts from the primary to secondary characters, and the entertaining Vegas-glitz showmanship.
Now You See Me is perhaps more reminiscent of the Oceans Trilogy than a magician-centred film like The Prestige
The premise, though promising and held together by its strong cast, becomes weak when its more closely looked at, but ultimately this is not a film to nit-pick over. It’s certainly implausible, the twists arguably predictable, and the final twist either disappointing or befuddling to many. Now You See Me is a film for escapism that does enough to keep the audience guessing, engaged, and entertained. The characters are sketchy and not particularly fleshed out, but the cast remains a solid source of entertainment, with Jesse Eisenberg playing yet again, a la The Social Network, the quietly confident, mild-mannered character. Mark Ruffalo is the befuddled and antagonistic cop while on the other hand Woody Harrelson offers the majority of laughs with his witty quips and sharp humour. Finally of course, the confrontation between the characters played by Morgan Freeman and Michael Cane was an absolute treat.
Now You See Me, even with certain flaws like its implausible climax and increasingly tangled plotline, is still a prominent part of the summer blockbuster entertainment. While its end can leave one feeling slightly cheated, the journey to its destination is fast-paced, energetic and fun. It doesn’t – more importantly – take itself seriously. Instead, it allows for all its silliness to come together in a glossy, amusing and action-packed fashion, along with its charismatic cast, to provide that sense of escapism that one should always enjoy in a film once in a while.
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