Unbelievably Bad

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2015)

One of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen. Now You See Me is a convoluted gimmick that thinks it's smart but really it's laughably bad. The story is a complete mess, and it's so predictable that when twists are revealed you either rolls your eyes or just yawn, I did both. I'm not going to give away any spoilers but the tagline "the closer you look, the less you'll see" screams out the obvious pretty much the whole time, it's so blatant which character is behind the whole trick. I'll admit it's got a flashy cast, but the real shame is that their performances aren't that great. Eisenberg's nerdy charm is starting to wither away, Harrelson's comedic timings are poor, but Isla Fisher boasts the strongest stage presence as one of the four Horsemen. The real shame is that Dave Franco is severely underused. It's actually Melanie Laurent that delivers the best though, as a French interpol agent who is very witty and smart, and her character arouses suspicion as the camera seems to focus on her quite a lot hinting at something. The police in this movie are portrayed as complete idiots, always one step behind the magicians, and the cat and mouse elements really suck. The action is vapid and boring, the only decent scene is Franco and Ruffalo's fight which only lasts for a minute or two. This movie disguises itself as clever spectacle, when really the awe of seeing real magic is taken away by the CGI which makes all the tricks feel even more fake than they already do. Seriously, you're better off watching an episode of Dynamo. Now You See me stretches out it's ending and fills in even more twists making it more preposterous and mundane, and Letterier's constantly spinning and panning camera-work is just a filler to disguise the fact there is nothing to hide. What an load of rubbish.