Painfully Bad

Rating: 3/10 (3 February 2020)

Whoa, this was painful. With a cast like that (Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine) and a promise of magic, mystery and a heist, you'll expect a great, cerebral plot, and a nice surprise at the end. Sadly, the plot is equivalent of getting spinned in a swivel chair while getting hit in the face with a sack of bricks.
The amount of holes this script has is insane. Most of the situations are completely unbelievable, considering it's supposed to be "real" illusionism - here, a guy can hypnotize people at will in a matter of seconds, and force them do pretty much anything, and that's just one example of how ridiculous this movie is. The whole death fake scene is another major offender, totally bonkers.
Every single character is awfully annoying and has close to zero development. When the two previously mentioned actors show up, it's nothing but a cameo. Characters like the Interpol agent are there just to pad the film, because they bring nothing to the table except a forced romance that's tellegraphed from the beginning.
The ending is simply stupid. I actually thought of it halfway through the movie, but discarded it because it made no sense at all. I was surprised at the revelation but for all the wrong reasons.
Movies like THE PRESTIGE, which I thought it was ruined with the sci-fi concept, and THE ILLUSIONIST, which I hated because of a justified murder, at least had the decency of showing actual real tricks, in front of the camera. NOW YOU SEE ME uses CGI almost in every trick, making them impossible to perform in real life, and therefore, ruining the whole concept of magic. It's nothing but a flashy show of cocky people and a story in which rich people are bad because they have money.
Avoid at all costs unless you want the lose two hours of your life, and end up really angry at yourself. At least both Caine and Freeman make the best of their scripts...