100 minutes of entertainment, 15 minutes of complete ruination

Rating: 5/10 (18 June 2013)

I wanted to like this movie. I EXPECTED to like this movie. I love caper movies, I love magic and I love the "Robin Hood" effect. It simply wasn't lovable. The female Interpol agent was totally useless. So much so that I can't even remember her name or almost anything she did in the movie despite having just seen it 4 hours ago. Had she been cut from the movie completely, it would have lost nothing. The 4 horsemen were a little flat - they don't really go anywhere. Since most of this movie is from the FBI point of view I guess that's to be expected. It was a real waste of a really talented cast though. Things felt a little choppy throughout as well, but I chalked that up to the nature of the movie - distraction and misdirection. On the upside, I did LIKE the movie. The tricks really carried it and made it entertaining to watch despite the flaws. Or at least, they did right up until the last 15 minutes. I don't want to provide spoilers, you can hit Wikipedia if you want to know the plot. However, be prepared for a MAJOR splash of WTF water at the end of the movie, and not in a good way. Yes, you find out the "big reveal" and that's okay. But then you find out the WHY behind the whole thing, and it make absolutely no sense at all. It includes facts that completely contradict earlier points of the movie, as well as random factors that come out of nowhere. And then roll credits. And you are left, in a darkened theater, wondering what just happened to a potentially great movie.