Now You See Me

A very complicated, but at the same time quite imaginative story. And the actors are the icing on the cake. They exuded that kind of a magician’s arrogance and cunning with which their idea grew and fell. But I must say that it wasn’t because of all this that I gave this movie four stars. If that was all the movie had, I would have settled on two. I was totally confused by the story. I, however, enjoyed the way this film was made. The director clearly put a lot of effort into this, to show this project was a dream come true for him. But the best and most beautiful thing about this movie was Mélanie Laurent. I could watch her all day. And if the magicians had chosen her for the disappearing act, I would’ve written an indignant letter all the way to Hollywood, demanding an explanation. Fortunately, she showed all of her French elegance and grace to my complete satisfaction. It’s evident that the director, who is also French, is aware of Melánie’s charm. So even though the movie has its flaws, it also deserves praise. As a result, I was satisfied and now I’m looking forward to a sequel. (13/12/2013)

I don't want to slag Now You See Me because Leterrier mixed what he could in his pursuit of style and often slipped into unintentional self-parody in his visual realm, but unfortunately it's unavoidable. The magic tricks look nice, the sonorous names sound beautiful and the story built on ten twists and turns in the last ten minutes is a delight here and there, but the tricks can always be explained rationally, the actors have nothing to play with in many cases and the final twist is so contrived and flashy that it hurt my eyes. Besides, how am I supposed to keep my fingers crossed for the fictional thieves when the pair of detectives chasing them are far more likeable? This is not new Ocean’s Eleven, not even by chance. 50% (28/10/2013)

Though Now You See Me tries to give the impression of being a clever and sophisticated crime-thriller with illusionists, it is actually a rather dull and half-baked tale full of holes, narrative nonsense and moronic twists dressed up in a superficially attractive and maximally spectacular coat in the form of action-oriented editing, flashy visuals, a lot of famous actors and thumping music, which is apparently meant to lull viewers to sleep so that they don’t start thinking about the plot. Of course, it would perhaps be possible to make an entertaining and high-quality film about how four extravagant showmen commit entirely absurd robberies and disguise them as magic shows. But then it wouldn’t have been possible for the plot of Now You See Me to include a completely serious storyline involving a Secret Service who is trying to investigate their case in a factual way and the character of the expert on magic who tries to somehow logically explain the bizarre illusions to him, but ends up explaining them in a way that would be completely impracticable in real life. The atmosphere of the magic performances is thus completely ruined by the film, because while you can certainly admire the magicians for their nimble hands and the precision of their staging, both of these elements were unfortunately replaced with megalomaniacal computer tricks and editing. Which definitely produces the desired “wow” effect for a brief moment, but it takes a lot away from the believability of the overall magical stylization. (20/02/2021)

..., Now You Don't. Entertainment that doesn’t offend your brain that is a huge advertisement for illusionists. One big advantage is that the gradation of the screenplay copies the gradation of the tricks in the movie and follows the rules of magic divulged in advance. Magic has always kept up with trends and, because we are a greedy generation interested only in having fun, our four (five) horsemen go at it cleverly and steal and then hand out money. A very pleasant cast, all of them with a good part to play and they enjoy the “moment", supplemented by the two old men, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, who gratefully accepted their roles of the biggest assholes of the entire charade. Leterrier is on top of kinetics, so all of the tricks are extremely dynamic and easy to see (during the performance), + not forgetting his favorite car chases. A seriously well-done popcorn movie with a twist that even I was surprised about. (24/07/2013)

Overwrought and contrived crap - sometimes I'm amazed at how screenwriters are able to ruin their own promising idea. The final half hour of Now You See Me in particular was downright miserable and I probably won't watch it again. The film is, for me, another piece in the puzzle of "Anything with Michael Caine in it". The other actors (including Morgan Freeman) are barely worth mentioning. Two stars and a bit for the (brisk, but totally unnecessary) action scene. (28/03/2014)