"Who doesn't love a good magic trick?"

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2018)

The movie lost me when the illusionists attempted to convince their audience they were sending a French businessman on his way to Paris via a teleportation helmet. Reminds me of that saying, 'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything'. So very early on, the story announced that it wasn't about anything real in the way of 'magic'. You didn't need Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) to convince you that the teleportation gimmick was staged, you just needed to know how it was done. I have to admit though, I'd never heard of 'flash money' before so I had to look it up. It's true that flash bills vanish when set on fire while leaving no trace, but a whole pallet? I'd like to see that in person.
The best thing to do here is to just sit back and enjoy the ride, as the players are entertaining and the gimmicks are interesting, it's all very slick and polished. Being the story of ego-centric illusionists, you had to know that Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) didn't really die in the car wreck. It was just a matter of waiting out the story to see when he would pop up again. And again, if you find yourself in the 'fall for anything' camp, you'll take it on faith that FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) had the patience and stamina to concoct a twenty year old revenge plan to get back at the elements that contributed to his father's death.
Best magic trick? When Jack Wilder turned into Gambit of the X-Men and started dishing out those deadly cards at Dylan. But now that I think about it some more, I DID see the Seven of Diamonds both times when Danny (Jesse Eisenberg) shuffled the cards to open the movie. Now THAT was magic!