Now You See Me Review

"How about a magic trick?" Well, if you like magic tricks, then Now You See Me might be a movie that you will enjoy.

While I have not seen any stage magicians in person, magic tricks and how magicians pull them off and hypnotism in general has always interested me to a degree, so Now You See Me was a movie that I was looking forward to seeing, if only for the tricks and that is exactly what I got: An entertaining ride, nothing more, nothing less.

If you are expecting an intelligent thrill ride with great characters and mind blowing plot twists, then go watch one of my favorite movies, The Prestige, because that is not what Now You See Me is like. It is a fun heist movie with charismatic and entertaining actors and some fun action.

Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Genre: Thriller, Caper, Suspense, Heist,
Release Date: May 31, 2013
Running Time: 115 minutes
MMPA rating: PG-13

The Good: Mark Ruffalo is excellent, Unexpected plot twists, Cool fight scene, Charismatic cast, Good humor, Entertaining magic tricks,

The Bad: Characters lack development, Questionable plot points, Too many plot contrivances,

Plot: The following plot summary is copied from Wikipedia.com.
Four gifted street magicians—J. Daniel Atlas, Merritt McKinney, Henley Reeves, and Jack Wilder—are brought together by an unknown benefactor and, one year later, are performing in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen". They are being sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler. For the finale of their first show, a member of the audience is invited to help them in their trick: robbing a bank. That audience member is Étienne Forcier, an account holder at the Crédit Républicain de Paris. Forcier is apparently teleported to his bank in Paris, where he activates an air-duct that vacuums up the money and showers it onto the crowd in Las Vegas.
Watch the movie to see what happens next.

Probably one of the reasons why so many people hate him in real life.

Plot: 4.0/10- Now You See Me's plot is questionable at best. Some parts are fun other parts make no sense. Honestly, I cannot decide whether the plot is entirely stupid or clever. My current verdict is neither, it was just a contrived movie that when you think about it too much falls apart. Think of all the conveniences and implausible coincidences in the Joker's escape plan from the The Dark Knight, multiply it by OVER-NINE-THOUSAND, and you have Now You See Me's plot. Did that bother me much? Not really. Thanks to the pacing and charismatic actors, it was fun, entertaining, and never bored me for a minute.

Characterization: 3.3/10- With the exception of one character, you do not really see who these people or why they do what they do. Thanks to the acting, the characters were, at least, likable and entertaining.

Action: 7.8/10- There is one action scene that utilizes magic and slight-of-hand combined with some great direction to make for one of the better non-sci-fi/fantasy action scene that I saw last year. Everything about that scene was very well executed in terms of both the direction and stun side. There was not too much shaky-cam either. The magic tricks were fun to watch as well.


Acting: 7.5/10- Mark Ruffalo is the standout best actor of the movie. Since I did not have anything against Jesse Eisenberg, having not seen him in anything else or that he was cast as Lex Luthor, at the time of watching the movie, I thought Eisenberg was fine. However, from what others have said, he plays basically the same character in all of his movies, which could be a problem for some viewers. Cain and Freeman were reliably great as always, and the entire cast in general are very charismatic and fun to watch.

Special effects: 5.2/10- Many reviewers seemed to have expected that all of the magic tricks in the movie to be real ones and not enhanced by special effects, and while some of the magic trick left me thinking, "no way could that be done without CGI," it was not a huge problem for me. However, the fact some of the "magic tricks" were aided by CGI made them not as cool, and the fact some of the CGI is somewhat noticeable is not a good thing.

Soundtrack: 7.1/10- The score is fun and fitting for what the movie is going for.

Comedy: 7.2/10- Woody Harrelson produced most of the humor and what was there made me laugh.

Overall: 6.1/10- While Now You See Me's plot has a few too many plot contrivances and some people might hate the ending, the movie was entertaining enough, providing you are paying Red Box not theater ticket prices.

Closing comments: Even though it was not particularly memorable, if there is one thing to be said about the movie is that it has, if nothing else, style.

*Major Spoilers* Warning, I am about spoil the big twist at the end. Mark Ruffalo turned out to be the the "Fifth Horseman," which was very unexpected, until the a few minutes before the reveal when more clues where given. For the most part, people thought the twist was dumb, and while they have a point some there is not a lot of foreshadowing or logic behind it, the title, "Now You See Me," says it all and I actually like that. In the end, the twist came out of no where, but I did not mind either way. However, I can certainly other why others would. When you think about it, the twist is just an empty slight-of-hand and misdirection by a magician. *End Spoiler*

Recommended for: Fans of any cast member, Magician fans,

Please check back tomorrow for my Top 10 Movie Battles List and let me know what you thought of the movie in the comments below.

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