Pass the Popcorn review

Rating: 6/10 (28 June 2013)

Now You See Me is the newest movie directed by Louis Leterrier, the man who brought us mainly mindless action movies like The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans and Transporter 1 & 2, which is interesting since all the trailers presented Now You See Me as a movie that strives to become something more than a mindless action movie - they presented it as a somewhat intelligent crime/thriller movie. But, hey, even the movie itself says 'come in close, because the more you think you see, the easier it'll be to fool you'. And that's what happened, I saw the trailers and thought I will be seeing an intelligent crime/thriller movie; and I was fooled. Instead I got a boring, fairly mindless movie with some, clearly, needlessly long action scenes.
Let me start of with the plot first. So, what is Now You See Me about? I could say that Now You See Me is a movie about 4 magicians called the 4 horsemen - consisting of J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) whose magic acts are a front for robberies, and try to escape an FBI agent who is after them. I could also say that Now You See Me is about an FBI agent named Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) who, aided by an Interpol agent named Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent), is trying to catch these magicians. I could even go as far as to say the movie is about an ex-magician named Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who tries to expose these 4 magicians and make money off of it. Furthermore, there is Michael Caine somewhere in the equation.
I really applaud the movie for assembling such a great cast (maybe the best cast I've seen in a while), however Now You See Me's greatest merit is its greatest flaw. There are just too many characters in the movie, and none of them get enough screen time. Moreover, there are too many subplots, and the movie constantly changes its focus. Who are we, the audience, supposed to root for? For the magicians to succeed in their plans? For the agents to catch the magicians? For Morgan Freeman to reveal the magicians? As a result of these rapid focus changes and the undeveloped characters I completely lost my interest for the movie half way through. Which is a shame, since the majority of the cast are wonderful actors who could have shined in their roles - had they only had something to work with. Eisenberg and Harrelson have no chemistry whatsoever nor do they share much screen time, in spite of the superb chemistry they showed in Zombieland. The only pair that's worse than them are Laurent and Ruffalo, who are awkwardly forced into a romantic subplot.
Of course, if you don't care about the characters and just want to see some pretty good scenes with amazing magic tricks (which were the best part of the movie), a somewhat decent and original story and obligatory car chase scenes, knock yourself out! Your money will be definitely well spent if you're not looking for anything more than a forgetfully fun movie. As for myself, I think the movie's title - Now You See Me - is pretty fitting. This is, hopefully, the only time I'm seeing this movie and never again. Since I don't want to get fooled again.
Rating: 6/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.wordpress.com/