Great, if you like ridiculous films

Rating: 4/10 (17 April 2016)

Hollywood seems obsessed by making films about magicians where the magicians turn out to have real magical powers. I've seen a certain mainstream film in the past that did the same thing and I hated it for cheating the viewer. NOW YOU SEE ME isn't as blatant as that, but it still has one ridiculous scene after another which would have been physically impossible in real life, thus making this a delusional fantasy of a film. Having all the magic done in-camera without cutting away would have done much to remedy this situation.
A problem of having an over-confident group of protagonists in a movie is that their characters are all annoying, and that's the case here. A smug Jesse Eisenberg is the worst, but Woody Harrelson is little better. Isla Fisher only seems to be around so she can show off her body in tight clothes and push-up bras. Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent do better as the cops investigating the cons, but it's left to the seasoned old-timers Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine to give the most professional performances.
In any case, NOW YOU SEE ME is an unlikeable film. There's a lot of incident going on here, and with it a lot of cheese. The CGI effects of fire and the like are very disappointing. Throwing in random car chases and fight scenes is over the top and doesn't work very well at all, as by the end it all seems rather overblown and pointless. Needless to say that this was a hit in America and a sequel has followed. Great, I can't wait.