NOW YOU SEE ME
Director : Louis Leterrier
Year : 2013
Genre : Heist
Rating : ***
With the huge cult success of illusionists such as Dynamo, David Blaine and Derren Brown, magic has now become a huge part of our current TV culture. Every year, a new wannabe magician appears on our screens and they soon gather a loyal following with the help a popular and well advertised series as well as the endless chain of live tours. Now Hollywood is cashing in on the public's love for conjuring with 'Now You See Me', a star studded entertaining romp that suffers in the screenplay and narrative departments, but succeeds in giving us a fun and highly enjoyable heist movie that envokes the ghost of the works of Christopher Nolan. Directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo and a supporting cast which includes Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, 'Now You See Me' is a well acted film that unfortunately loses the strength of it's convictions and ends on a particularly sour and confusing note. Overwritten and containing a number of convoluted and almost indecipherable plot twists, 'Now You See Me' will inevitably annoy a lot of people. For me personally, it is a perfectly fine movie that didn't wow me in any way at all, but for it's running time I was completely involved in the world of magic, illusion and slight of hand.
Eisenberg, Fisher, Harrelson and Franco play 4 street illusionists who are called together by a mysterious benefactor to form a formidable magic group called the Four Horsemen. During their spectacular live shows, they perform feats which seem to break the bounds of reality and cross over into the realms of illegality and when $3 million is magically transported from a bank vault in Paris to the arena in Las Vegas, the FBI are soon investigating and hunting down the elusive group.
Director Louis Leterrier has had a very interesting and more importantly, very varied career as a filmmaker. Beginning with the wildly entertaining 'Transporter' in 2002, Leterrier would stay in the action genre and continue to make a variety of loud, fast paced adrenaline rushers. After his hugely successful 'Avengers' chapter 'The Incredible Hulk' in 2007, he would go on to make the rubbish 'Clash Of The Titans', which is constantly named as one of the worst movies of 2010. Wisely, Leterrier has decided to leave the genre that made his name behind him and 'Now You See Me' is like no other movie he has ever made. Yes there are the kinetic chase scenes and a number of heart racing set pieces that we would come to expect from Leterrier, but for the most part, the movie is either set in a large auditorium with thousands of adoring fans or quiet conversations between 2 or 3 people. These dichotomies really help to add to the mysterious and innocuous nature of the film and give it an air of secrecy and threatening undercurrent. However as mentioned, Leterrier really drops the ball when it comes to the numerous plot twists and integalactically ridiculous character developments. For decades, directors have been intriguing us with fascinating and unexpected narrative developments and for the most part, I was enjoying the convoluted and silly, but fun twists. But by the end, the twists only scrambled the plot in my head and made everything else that came before it seem wrong and very forced indeed. I admire the fact that Leterrier has tried to give us a more thoughtful blockbuster in the vein of Christopher Nolan and it is about time that directors tried to give us more than the regular fodder that we are fed at the cinemas. But without self restraint or a modicum of integrity, it is very easy to come across as pretentious and very self important. Unfortunately, this is exactly how 'Now You See Me' plays out.
The cast are reliably good and while no one gives a stand out performance in the film, each actor manages to create a memorable and personable character. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla FIsher and Dave Franco are all great as the elusive Four Horsemen and each one brings a unique dynamism and talent to their parts. I especially liked Jesse Eisenberg as the self proclaimed leader of the group who hides his foibles and fears under a cloak of sarcasm and dry wit. Michael Caine is always great to see on screen, but seems very underused in his role and disappears half way through the movie without any reason or even explanation at all and Morgan Freeman is, well Morgan Freeman. Unfortunately, the loose wire of the film is in the form of Mark Ruffalo, who really isn't give much to do and is written as the stereotypical FBI officer who is constantly thwarted by his more intelligent foes that we see in every other heist movie. Maybe an actor with more bite like Robert Downey Jr. or even Bradley Cooper would have suited the role better as Ruffalo comes across as slightly out of his depth. I have nothing against the actor and I like many of his films. But to me, he just seems too nice of a guy to be playing an enemy of the people.
For the most part, the practical magic tricks shown in the film are very entertaining to watch and I completely believed that the actors performed them themselves. However, I had a problem with the CGI effects in the film which seemed to overpower the illusion of the magic and came across as completely fake. Obviously some of the tricks in 'Now You See Me' couldn't be attempted live, but with a more subtle use of computer effects, the tricks could have looked more realistic. 'Now You See Me' is yet another case of a film where I was completely numb to the CGI on screen and I have a feeling that I am losing the interest and awe that computer effects can create. As a result of the overuse of CGI in movies, they have become cheaper and now every single blockbuster released has to contain an amount of pixelated illusion. I am getting thoroughly bored of CGI and I long for the days of practical effects and even stop motion animation. With these techniques, the artwork and craftsmanship was obvious and even though the end result may have been hit and miss, to me, they were so much more interesting than watching a computer generated man hitting another computer generated man into a computer generated building. Maybe the magic of CGI has gone for me and I know that I will be soon fed up with the entire notion and while 'Now You See Me' hasn't pushed me over the edge yet, it is certainly balancing precariously.
Despite all of it's problems and it's unbelievably ridiculous conclusion, I can't deny that I really enjoyed 'Now You See Me' for what it was. I can't imagine it will any awards and I don't think we will see a 'Now You See Me Again' anytime soon. But for it's running time, I was involved in the story and intrigued by the magic on screen. It is absolutely nothing special and will not go down in history as one of the best movies of 2013. But for a summer blockbuster, it ain't half bad and if I was given a choice between this and watching a man in his pyjamas flying around New York for the best part of 3 hours, I would take this in a heartbeat.
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