Great cast, interesting premise; but there's not much else good about it

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2013)

When I first saw the trailer for Now You See Me it got my interest straight away. I thought to myself it's got a great cast and an interesting premise that made it look to be a cross between the Prestige & Ocean's 11. Whilst this film has elements of these 2 films, it completely fails to be anywhere near as good as either of these films.
NYSM starts off interestingly enough; we begin with 4 magicians; J Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg) Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Fisher)& Jack Wilder (Franco) who are all working as 'small time' magicians. They all find themselves drawn together when they each receive a card telling them to meet at a specific place at a specified time. At this stage, they are unaware of who has brought them together and why they have brought them together. We then jump forward 1 year and the 4 magicians are now working together and collectively they are known as 'the 4 horseman' (which is strange as one of them is female). They quickly find themselves being pursued by the FBI and Interpol when they discover that they are pulling off bank heists during their performances. FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Laurent) are sent into investigate the magicians and try to 'expose' their magic and ultimately bring them down. They also receive valuable assistance from Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), a former magician who is paid substantial amounts of money to expose magician's tricks.
I think the main problem with NYSM is that there was a distinct lack of character development. We get next to no background information on any of the magicians (the only thing we learnt is that Reeves & Atlas used to work together). This meant that I was unable to connect with any of the characters and meant that there was no-one that you cared for or felt sympathy for. The story wasn't particularly engaging and at times I felt rather bored. The acting also wasn't great and I must admit I expected more from veterans like Caine & Freeman - they were both OK, but I've seen better from both of them. I found Eisenberg to be annoying more than anything else. Fisher was OK, but nothing more than that. I was however impressed with Harrelson & Ruffalo and felt that they gave the strongest performances.
There were a couple of twists in the film which at least kept this feature slightly interesting. Also some of the visuals were great and I even enjoyed some of the magic tricks. However, for me, I need a film to be a bit more engaging, I need characters that are properly developed and characters that I'll care for. Sadly, you don't get any of that with Now You See Me.
Overall, it's OK, but it pales in comparison to films such as The Prestige & Ocean's 11. My advice would be to watch either of those films and skip this one.