Mediocre entertainment

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2015)

As most people already wrote, the twists can be seen coming from a mile away. The final reveal got me a bit off guard as I guess my brain went by the basic Hollywood standards (the foreigner is the "bad guy") but nevertheless, 90% predictable down to the actual "magic tricks".
Especially these magic tricks, however, are the biggest flaw of this movie. If you want to sell "magic" as elaborate tricks you should stay away from CGI effects that do not work in real life and/or you should at least try explain these tricks (especially the complex ones) more so if you already have a debunk character in the movie anyways. Otherwhise you have a merger of tricks and CGI-real-magic, that this movie is trying to permanently deny. The tricks that get explained in the movie are your basic stuff that has been known by every schoolchild since ...I don't know the past 100 years? and their use within the movie is soooo predictable, so many MANY ways of using more clever tricks.... and all failed.
Writing of characters and dialogues definitely not based on reality, and filled with typical American stereotypes of "balancing the world". Just on the main description of this movie and the modern "Robin Hood" image it tries to create. If you rob a bank, this doesn't hurt the "evil" bank (little hint - its ensured!) it hurts the little people that have their money IN the bank.....
Now the good parts: Acting was decent and visually the movie is quite nice, take away the overused 360 camera movements around the main characters.Lots of colors.