Things are not as they seem in Now You See Me

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2013)

One genre that can really entertain when done right is the heist flick. For them to work one of the most important things is to have a creative approach to the heist or the heist itself. Lately there have been very few adding anything new to the genre, but with Now You See Me they look to have tried to add a bit of magic to the struggling genre literally. With a great cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine does it create the spectacle it promises or are the trailers all an illusion?
Now You See Me follows an FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money. For once a film got the heist element right and delivered a clever and engaging story to go along with it. This isn't a perfect film by any means, but thanks to the magic element, which is usually a film killer, it takes it to a level that keeps things moving in an interesting direction. While the trailers showcase the magicians as the leads, this isn't quite the case. Make no mistake they are in the majority of the film and deliver the best parts of the film, but this movie follows more of Mark Ruffalo's detective as he is obsessively trying to solve this case. Typically Ruffalo is great and he is decent here, but just not up to par of his normal performances. Most of this is due to the character not being all that interesting and the attempt to thrust more depth into it that was really not necessary. The rest of the cast have great chemistry and chew up the scenery around them with Michael Caine really the only one with very little to do. The heists are fun to watch and ponder how they pulled it off even though some of them are predictable, but for the most part create a great presence on screen. While not a lot there are some great action moments here and there that were pretty surprising featuring Dave Franco that probably were not all him, but still fun to watch none the less.
With the exception of some of the useless character elements to the Ruffalo character the rest of this movie is pretty entertaining adding a unique twist to the heist genre that has been missing. It probably would have been even better if the main focus had been on the magicians also known as the Four Horseman, but who knows maybe the less is more approach is why it worked so well.