Through the magic of motion pictures film is able to create a very convincing illusion; the ability to trick your mind into transforming flashing images and sound into a real-time documentation of sequential events and stories. Of course everything about this illusion is false. But this is something that we as the audience have already assumed and accepted before we even walk through the doors of our local multiplex.
Similarly,
performance magic utilizes these same expectations. We know that it can’t be
real but we allow ourselves to be convinced well enough to enjoy the show. Because of the similarities between these two mediums
movies have an inherent difficultly portraying the magic of magic.
When
watching a magician perform we are already one step removed from believability.
So when you then add the extra obstacle of a film’s narrative conceit, it
usually leaves me, arms crossed, wondering what it is exactly that am I
supposed to be surprised by. It’s akin to working as a 911 operator and having
someone wake from a nightmare and then calling to tell you about it. With all
of that said I have seen some good movies about magicians—“The Prestige” comes
to mind—but “Now You See Me” is not one of them.
Jesse
Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco play four fledgling street
magicians who are selected and banded together by a mysterious secret society.
After a few short years their lackluster solo acts become a crowd drawing Las
Vegas theater show called The Four Horsemen. Together they stage bank robberies via onstage
teleportation and dare the police to figure out how they did it.
Enter Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent as a
frustrated FBI agent and French member of Interpol, fresh on her first big
case. If you, like me, find these two to have absolutely no chemistry, despite
the fact that the film is trying very hard to establish some sexual tension
between the two, then get ready to be disappointed, as their puppy-dog gumshoe
antics nearly dominate the majority of the movie after the first twenty-five
minutes or so.
Later
we are introduced to Michael Caine as a the group’s benefactor who gets
unwittingly bamboozled and Morgan Freeman as a magician turned debunker who is
supposed to be helping the police…or maybe he’s actually helping the
Horsemen…or maybe he’s being paid by Caine’s character to get to the group
before the FB I do…or maybe I stopped caring well before the twists even reveal
themselves.
This
movie relies heavily on the audiences willing suspension of disbelief and as
the plausibility of the plot is stretched tighter and tighter the narrative
thread eventually snaps by the weight its own absurdity. Beside the fact that Louise Leterrier (“Clash
of the Titans”, “The Transporter”) directs this thing within an inch of its
life—filled to the brim with distractingly frenetic camera work, confused
editing and lousy CGI—when the third act eventually arrives to what is supposed
to be a mind blowing character revelation, I had long since lost my patience with
the screenplay’s incessant stacking of one preposterous contrivance on top of
another.
Perhaps
even more problematic is the muddled tone of this picture. It’s far too hokey
and light to be an adult-minded heist-thriller and it’s too suggestive and
convoluted to work for kids. What results is an exceedingly senseless, out-of-tune
movie that feels like it’s clumsily making itself up as it goes.
The
best thing you can say about “Now You See Me” is that it’s breezy and
digestible in that overproduced, next-year-it-will-be-in-the-Wal-Mart-five-dollar-DVD-bin,
way. However, despite a well-cast,
talented ensemble, everyone here feels wasted and the film never realizes the
potential of even the base entertainment values of its high-concept.
Grade: D+
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2013
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2013
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