Early on in Now You See Me, magician J Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) says, “Come in closer...the more you think you see, the easier it is to fool you.” As we watch the film, though, the idea that “the closer you are, the less you actually see” turns out to be false. The filmmakers, under the misguided assumption that they’re too clever for the audience, explain their tricks in the first part of the film. And if we’re paying enough attention, that helps us see the end coming way before it actually does.
But that isn’t to say that the film isn’t entertaining. In its opening sequence, we meet the Four Horsemen, when they’re individual magicians – J Daniel Atlas, Marriott McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). Their tricks, performed with a little help from the VFX team, are captivating.
The four come together when they’re summoned by tarot cards, and are given a mysterious message using the flashiest techniques. Next thing we know, they’ve become an act, and announce that they’re going to rob a bank. This is followed by one of the best sequences in the film – the interrogation of the magicians, as enjoyable for the snappy dialogue as for the tricks they employ.
Suddenly, we meet a lot of characters – Detective Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), a brash all-American agent determined to snuff out the nonsense about magic, a charming Frenchwoman (Mélanie Laurent) who claims to be from Interpol, Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who makes a business of exposing magicians’ tricks, and Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), a rich financier. With a cast this large, there is plenty of scope for red herrings, and the story gets rather crowded with them.
Blended into this mix is the legend of a cult called The Eye, a secret society descended from ancient Egypt, a fraternity with some sort of induction ritual that calls for unquestioning obedience. From here on, the clichés get worse and peg the film down. There’s some relief in between, though, with a beautifully choreographed fight sequence that uses magic. However, we’re always a step ahead of the film, and the writers assume we can’t be. Going by the gasps at the end, only a group of teenagers were fooled. Everyone else had either guessed, or was irritated by the end (which I would have been, if I hadn’t guessed).
Parts of the film seem too contrived in retrospect, and it treads the path beaten by superior films that deal with magic, such as The Prestige. A lot of the action is implausible, the twists gimmicky. What is most disappointing is that it does no justice to the scope offered by the storyline – a group of magicians decide to play Robin Hood.
The Verdict: Now You See Me is entertaining enough, but given the potential of the cast and the plot, this film could have been a whole lot better.