Now You See Me Review

[Westside Steve]

 

Now You See Me

Summit Entertainment

PG 13 116 min

 

I'm trying to think of a film in which everything was done really really well but still the end product wasn't what you'd call enjoyable. Maybe something like THE ELEPHANT MAN which is a great film but I've never really wanted to see it a second time. Too depressing? Hard to tell. Anyway, I was just trying to think of an opposite because NOW YOU SEE ME is an incredibly fun and enjoyable film despite some flaws. First of all we all love magic and most of us like those A TEAM type of team scams that work out in the end. That's the idea behind this ensemble caper. Four magicians are inexplicably brought together and formed into a blockbuster Las Vegas team called the Four Horsemen. It really is a hell of a show. As a matter of fact these guys pull off a bank robbery half a world away and shower the audience with the stolen cash. Since this bank just happens to be in the heart of Paris it not only grabs the attention of our FBI but also Interpol.

This is a complicated case for two reasons, one that it can't possibly be really magic and two that the American FBI agent blank is kind of well, a dope. There are two more key players in this grand game of sleight of hand, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freemans character was once a minor league magician but soon learned there was much more profit to be made in revealing the secrets of other magicians through his hot selling television specials and DVDs.

So it seems to be a logical fit that the FBI would come hat in hand to this condescending prick hoping to figure out exactly what happened. Now if I tell you anymore it will probably spoil a lot of the fun for you so I won't. The Horseman pull off a few more high visibility stunts to both the delight and dismay of their mentor and financier Michael Caine. I can tell you that it will be boiled down to a fairly clever climax but that's one of the problems in this film. Trick endings are best pulled off when clues have been prominently set throughout the film.

You will have to think pretty hard and give a fair amount of leeway since these clues werent delivered really well. Same with some of the relationships, not badly just less than stellar. Of course the entire plot is certainly enough fun that these slight omissions don't spoil it. So after the ending I was left with more of a shrug than a WOW!!! And only one of the other revelations at the end was visible a mile away.

Still really enjoyable.

B+

 

WSS