NOW YOU SEE ME Uses Magic Tricks to Distract from the Meager Story

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First of all, I was struck by the impressive cast of this movie. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo… That’s quite the list.

Now You See Me tells us the story of four street-wise magicians, not afraid to scam a person or two while they’re at it. Soon, they’re brought together by the mythical “Eye”, a phenomenon we get to learn very little about, except that somehow, it originated in Ancient Egypt?

Anyway, they’re brought together and without any question, they go about completing the tasks the Eye gives them, even though there’s the chance of going to jail for it, as they have to steal and deceive. These tasks have a high Robin Hood factor – taking money from the rich and handing it out to the poor and underprivileged.

An Unexplained Rise to Country-wide Fame: A Poorly Constructed Plot

A year later, they’ve become popular country-wide, though we’re given no explanation as to how, since in that year it appeared they were mostly preparing for the last three shows. The only thing we’re told about their sudden climb to fame is that they got a wealthy benefactor, Arthur Tressler (played by Michael Caine), but why he would support these street acts with bad reps is beyond me, especially if you consider his rather predictable fate.

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These three shows have a very high wow factor, and all the magic tricks, the effects, they all basically misdirect us. Not in the obvious sense of their magic, but in the sense that the magic distracts us from the fact that in its essence, Now You See Me has a very bad plot. The story is poorly constructed and the movie badly edited, with odd flashbacks and flashes into the future, breaking up the chronology of the film. Other filmmakers have made it work; in this case, these flashes are just confusing and unnecessary.

Flat, Uninteresting Characters

The only character in this movie that stood out was Harrelson’s Mentalist Merritt McKinne. He was loads of fun, as all of Harrelson’s characters are, admittedly. He has a very specific kind of quirky charm. It was the only character with some kind of interesting back story to him.

However, this movie was riddled with amazingly unidimensional characters – Morgan Freeman’s Thaddeus Bradley, who was just there to be scowling and annoying, Mélanie Laurent’s Alma Dray, the French Interpol agent who was reduced from what could have been a kickass European agent to a sexy, French accented purring romantic interest. Mark Ruffalo’s Dylan Rhodes being the seemingly dumb cop with a twist of his own. Even Michael Caine’s character Arthur Tressler was just a rich bastard and nothing more. Lest we not forget Jesse Eisenberg playing the usual uncharismatic Jesse Eisenberg but with what looked like a bad wig and a ridiculously tiny soul patch.

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And what about Isla Fisher’s character, whose name I can’t even remember, who was just a sexy looking bimbo running over the stage, shouting with a hoarse voice. How nice of them to add a woman to the “horsemen”, but it would have been nice if she actually had something intelligent to say. Unfortunately though, that wasn’t in the books for the women in this movie.

Foolish Law Enforcement and the Hyperbole of the Horsemen

I was amazed at how immensely stupid the creators of this movie portrayed law enforcement to be: instead of them being one step behind, it was always ten.  They were hypnotized, fooled, infiltrated, tricked, deceived, misdirected, et cetera. In this movie, the Robin Hood figures of the Horsemen were the heroes, not justice – even if the plot twist told us there was no moral higher ground behind the Robin Hood actions: eventually, it came down to petty revenge, pretty much.  To me, this movie told me that revenge and the means through which it’s achieved are justified as long as we “give back” to the public.

We can also wonder about why the Four Horsemen were called the Four Horsemen: biblically, these are the four that bring final judgment to the world and are the harbingers of the apocalypse. In Now You See Me, they were the Hermit, the High Priestess, the Lover and Death, whereas originally, they’re believed to represent conquest, war, famine and death. I don’t see why only Death was there (perhaps for the obvious reason that Death dies? That would be very disappointingly cliché, would it not?). It all seems very farfetched. The Eye, as a magician himself, would have a flair for the dramatic, obviously, but I found this Four Horsemen Judgment Day mythology a ridiculous hyperbole.

On a Final Note

Let’s summarize. This movie was mildly entertaining though all in all, the magic tricks and prestigious list of otherwise great actors didn’t make up for the badly written characters, poor dialogue or the bad story. I could recommend this movie for a Friday night when you just got back home from work, tired of a week’s work and want some mindless entertainment to numb the brain – the magic is entertaining enough, as well as the twist in the end, to keep you awake. If you’re looking for an interesting story and some good mythology and an interesting twist, but want to keep the magic, go watch The Prestige, instead.

What do you think about the movie’s message that “revenge and the means through which it’s achieved are justified as long as we “give back” to the public”?

What do you think of the symbolism of the Four Horsemen?

Come chat with us in the comments!

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