Oh No You Don’t; “Now You See Me Review”

Release Date: May 31st, 2013

Studio: Summit Entertainment (Lionsgate Films)

Production Budget: 75 million

Director: Louis Leterrier

Screenwriters: Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt

Source Material: Original Idea!

Starring:

Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes

Melanie Laurent as Alma Dray

Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley

Jesse Eisenberg as J. Daniel Atlas

Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney

Dave Franco as Jack Wilder

Isla Fisher as Henly Reeves

Michael Caine as Arthur Tressler

Music: Bryan Tyler

Running Time: 115 minutes

Plot: A group of magicians known as the 4 Horsemen rob a bank in Paris while performing in Las Vegas, and it is up to an FBI agent (Ruffalo), an Interpol detective (Laurent), and a magic debunker (Freeman) to expose them as they continue to award their stolen riches to their own audience.

Review: I believe anything is worth seeing at least once, especially so for an original idea; magicians that rob a bank, how has this not been done before? Which is why I was particularly excited to go see “Now You See Me”. However, I am somewhat superstitious when it comes to watching movies in theatres, every time during a movie when someone leans over and whispers to me something like “this is actually pretty good”, my expectations start to dip, and with that they are met. It’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy I think a film is about to head down hill and it does.

“Now You See Me”, is a perfect analogy for Common’s film career, as well as his starring role in the movie.

The scenes that lead the audience through the first two acts of this movie are all very enjoyable. The action is of course fun to watch and well staged, and the characters, though all mostly one dimensional are played by good looking (the women anyway) and very charismatic actors, and the film has many funny moments. I felt duped though as the magicians themselves are pretty much sidelined, and the majority of the screen time is given to Mark Ruffalo. It’s the Ruffalo show! His romantic sub-plot with Melanie Laurent really doesn’t go too far or is that compelling, which is ridiculous. Because it seems Mark Ruffalo phones it in here, yet how can you not fall in love with Melanie Laurent? (shown below) In short on that matter, I’ll just say its not on the “13 Going On 30” level of romantic tension.

Oooh stop it! Melanie Laurent you are too cute!

The Director can’t quite pull all the threads in this film together. The whole film hypes up its ending as something to amaze, but it seems to lack any meaningful resolution or conclusion in my opinion. I mean it all comes together, just not with much sense A lot of it just kind of happens, entertaining but meaningless. As the credits suddenly rolled I was left disappointed and bewildered knowing the marketing team got the slight of hand on me.

Overall Scale: +1

-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3

Tidbits:

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jim Carrey, Hugh Grant, Sacha Baron Cohen and Colin Firth were considered for the lead roles before it was decided to go for younger leads. Jake Gyllenhaal was offered a role at one time as well as Olivia Wilde, the latter who probably confused this film for “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone”.
Michael Caine was locked in his dressing room for a whole night during the shooting of the movie. Caine fell asleep after shooting and couldn’t hear when the director called the day a wrap. Everyone thought that Caine left and the set was closed. Caine wake up in the pitch dark and wasn’t released until the morning until someone heard his cries for help.
This film was distributed by Summit Entertainment, whose highest grossing non-twilight film at 90 million is “Red”. The sequel to which comes out on July 19th.
Oddly enough, I feel this film deserves a sequel that can live up to its original potential.
Something for your playlist (both songs from marketing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmc21V-zBq0 (in the commercial)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfHCHgWusHM (in the trailer)