It's all show and hollow on the inside, you feel tricked afterwards

Rating: 3/10 (17 August 2017)

A movie about illusionists pulling of bank heists during their performances, well that could be interesting! And with such a big cast it's bound to be good right?
Now you see me starts with introducing four street performers (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher) doing cheap magic tricks in front of an audience to earn money. They all get summoned to an apartment in New York by someone in the form of tarot cards. After they get together we suddenly jump to Las Vagas one year later were the four of them (now called "the Four Horsemen") perform a big show on stage. During the show they rob a bank in Paris by randomly picking a Frenshman from the audience and 'teleporting' him to the vault of said bank. Robbing banks during magic shows draws attention from several big people, including the world famous Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who debunks magic tricks and insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) who sponsors them. To investigate the theft FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is given the case and is teamed up with Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent). During questioning the four horsemen, they react incredibly arrogant and claim that they will always be two steps ahead of the FBI. Because they have no proof they have to let them go, but will Dylan with the help of Thaddeus Bradley and the lovely Alma Dray be able to stop them before they pull of more heists?
I have to admit I'm not the biggest fan of heist movies but with well crafted characters, exciting action and a solid plot with believable twists it's possible to make a good movie. Unfortunately, apart from some good action scenes, this heist movie falls flat very quickly. Lets start with the characters: they are all very hollow, very little background is given for the four horsemen and they act so annoyingly arrogant (for unknown reason) that I started to hate them very quickly and was hoping for a scene where they get punched in the face. There is no motivation given for their actions and they can all unbelievably easily break into banks, FBI phones, steal top secret data and what not that I assume they just have superpowers! For example, the fight scene between Dave Franco and Mark Ruffalo had me believing he was the X- Men mutant Gambit, how else could he fight like that being just a stage artist? And normally I like to see Freeman and Caine in movies but here there characters are given so little that they seemed lost and just reading there lines. I only liked Mark Ruffalo but his character was given proper motivation (catch the thieves) and he acted like it.
A good plot is what usually drives these movies but after the credits rolled I discovered that there simply was no plot here. No reason is given why the heists are done and there is no character development or chemistry going on. Yes there are surprises and 'big reveals' but they are so far fetched and rely on unbelievable 'one in a million' shots that I started to feel insulted. No I didn't see it coming but if you give your street artists super powers instead of using skillful misdirection in your movie, you can pull of everything and just force me to roll with it right?
I also think the movie was given more money then they needed with all those ridiculous special effects and over the top sound editing. The sound effects used here made it feel like your watching the Rohan army charging down on the Pelenor fields but on screen you just see two people doing a 'make the rabbit disappear in a box' trick. Was there money left over or something? Added to the super sounds is the annoying moving shots and shaky cam, it made me feel dizzy at times. I think those moving shots were used in abandon to cover up the fact that there is nothing to see in this hollow movie.
I really disliked this movie and felt insulted by assuming I would swallow all the ridiculous things happening on screen and not questioning anything. I think it had worked better by just saying the magicians where REAL magicians who can do as they please. Or if they said "FOOLED YOU!" in big letters before the credits rolled. Maybe if you don't mind lack of intelligence in a movie and just want to see some cool effects you might enjoy it. But there are a million other movies that have that so I see no reason to watch this one.