Now You See Me - Film Review

*CAUTION: This review contains spoilers for Now You See Me. If you haven't seen it and wish to do so, proceed with caution.*

Of all the stage craft in existence, the acts who have it hardest to gain credibility are the magicians.

People are far too eager to poke holes into magic tricks and find out how they're going on while they're being conveyed. While there is some success with the Penn and Teller shows and the recent rise of Dynamo: Magician Impossible, a lot of magic is generally sneered at.

Maybe this is why somebody decided its time for a film where the magicians are ready to bite back.

The premise of Now You See Me is of four street magicians performing a bank job. Sounds tempting enough, and with its role-call of A-list names it sounds like it could be even bigger. The film has already trumped the diabolical-looking After Earth in the ratings but is it all show?

We are introduced to magic troupe The Four Horsemen, who are formed of street performers - J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Mermitt McKinney (Woody Harrelson). They are summoned by a mysterious benefactor's tarot cards to New York City and shown an intricate scheme with motives unclear.

One year later and the gang are playing a huge show in Las Vegas. At the climax of their Vegas show, they decide to rob a bank with the help of a man in the audience chosen at random using ping pong balls. The man says his local bank is one in Paris but no bother - the magicians bring him up on to, before transporting him back to the arena. Bought back with him are some 3.2 million Euros, which are jettisoned across the crowd.

The crowd is delighted - as you would be if you got a random 50 Euro haul - but the FBI are not quite so enthusiastic. Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is partnered up with Interpol agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent) to investigate the magic troupe.

Unfortunately a trigger word renders the man that was 'teleported' useless and the magicians don't prove much help beyond "it was magic", so they're let go. More help is offered by ex-magician-turned-whistleblower Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), who deduced the money had been stolen from the Parisian bank a while before and elaborate smoke and mirrors were used to deceive everyone into thinking it was stolen in real time.

And therein lies one of the flaws of the film, much like magic. As it happens it is easy to get swept away in what is pure spectacle. Hell, if you were in the arena enjoying the show when suddenly a man snapped his fingers and let it rain money on your head, it would be amazing.

But when you de-construct it, it just gives it the feel of a standard heist movie. There's the various marks and the unwitting central con who gives it the central momentum.

It also begins one of the traits of the film - the endless attempts at twists and turns, that attempt to be clever but by-and-large are a bit hit-and-miss. Some of what they're attempting works and has a smooth big picture but there's a fair few moments of clutter that don't help the show's smoothness.

Anyway, after Vegas, the show rolls east to New Orleans. Here, the team pull their next assortment of tricks before they conclude with the biggest one of all. The shows in Vegas and the Big Easy have been bankrolled by insurance multi-millionaire Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), and as a climax of the show they steal roughly $140million from them and distribute it to their crowd, who were all victims of denied or reduced insurance claims with Tressler Insurance.

Tressler had previously tried to get Bradley off his back but now decided to utilise him as the key to reclaim the cash back.

This leads to the FBI seemingly gaining some ground but soon enough they duly lose it, as although a car chase seemingly claims one of the Horsemen, they lose track as a safe full of stolen money is revealed to be a hoax.

And then, just as it seems they have the now-Three Horsemen cornered at their final gig on Five Pointz in Queens, they lose them again.

No revelations how but it is more of the same problem. The cast are clearly enjoying themselves and it is a remarkable deception that is spectacle in its own way without resorting to blowing up a skyscraper or four, which is a refreshing change. But the plausibility of it all is a bit of a mental stretch.

The end of the film is also a strange one. It shows how easy it can be to get lost in the vision, as it requires fairly heavy-duty explanation and knot-tying to tie the entire film together. So although it all checks out by it's fairly over-the-top rules, the long explanation is a bit of a mega-delay that takes a while to truly click.

So although its a charming and entertaining piece of film, the big reveal as to how it all come together has a lot of loose fits that results in some of the magic is kinda lost.

3/5