At the beginning of Now You See Me, Jesse Eisenberg performs a card trick and reminds his audience that in magic the closer you look, the less you see. In this sense, the latest film from Louis Leterrier could indeed be called "magic."
The trick here is just not to look too hard, and let the charisma of the movie's stars, the glitzy production values and the very cool premise of magicians turned bank thieves sweep you up. Ignore the gaping plot holes and the too clever by half trick ending that tries to give you a Keyser Soze moment but doesn't.
Sometimes that's difficult however. Consider gaping plot hole #1. A bank in Paris has been robbed, and our Robin Hood magicians leave their calling card lying inside the safe in place of the 3.2 million Euros which are then sprinkled down onto their Las Vegas audience. Then follows some legal mumbo jumbo whereby it turns out that since the FBI can't prove exactly how this trick was done, they're forced to let the so-called "four horsemen" go free to perform their upcoming much-publicized "Act II." I'd have to dig out my law notes, but I'm pretty sure that's not how the non-Hollywood FBI would respond to this situation.
Or there's lone wolf lawman Mark Ruffalo's obligatory objection to being saddled with the partner from the other agency (Interpol in this case), because what man would want the beautiful Melanie Laurent by his side at all times? Not all formulas need to be adhered to.
But certain tropes of the genre aside, watching the charm and bickering of the four leads is worth the price of admission. Jesse Eisenberg plays reprises his Zuckerberg role of arrogant smart aleck, except this time he does magic instead of programming and has a better wardrobe. Fine by me. Isla Fisher plays a modern Houdini escaping handcuffs, tanks of water and CGI piranhas. Quirkmaster veteran Woody Harrelson plays a sleazy mentalist (on the off chance anyone doesn't find that redundant), pulling it off with laughs and pizzazz. Dave Franco, kid brother to the currently more famous James, holds his own against the better known stars, as pick-pocket and lock-pick extraordinaire. They're sexy, wear sleek expensive black suits, and have a charisma that's by turns dorky and subversive.
And while the ending may seem like it
was directed by a post-Village M. Night Shyamalan, the individual tricks
and twists throughout the movie really are fun and quite clever in some
cases. Worth seeing, just don't look too closely.
Grade: B
Speaking of looking too closely, here's a vid revealing how Eisenberg did the card trick at the very beginning:
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