From left to right: Justice Smith, Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate/Supplied
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Isla Fisher
Classification PG; 112 minutes
Opens in theatres Nov. 14
More than a decade after the flashy illusionist flick Now You See Me turned fedora-topped stage magic into a mainstream cinematic spectacle, the franchise returns with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – a film that seems both eager to dazzle and strangely unwilling to risk surprise. What began in 2013 as a crowd-pleasing, if deeply unserious caper (think Robin-Hood-fantasy-meets-Vegas-showmanship by way of the 2010s obsession with EDM) has almost fully calcified by this third outing.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom), the film reassembles its familiar troupe of magician-thieves known as the Four Horsemen: Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Woody Harrelson’s Merritt McKinney. The group, now semi-retired and nursing varying levels of disillusionment and bruised egos, are lured back into action when a trio of younger and scrappier magicians Charlie (Justice Smith), Bosco (Dominic Sessa) and June (Ariana Greenblatt) run a low-level grift in their name.
Angered by the con, the Horsemen are nevertheless impressed with their younger counterparts’ skills. At the urging of The Eye – the franchise’s shadowy society of magicians who influence world events from behind the scenes – the two groups join together for yet another high-stakes heist.
Rosamund Pike as Veronika in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate/Supplied
The target this time around? The world’s largest diamond, set to be auctioned off in Dubai (of course), and owned by a powerful white South African family dynasty whose unseemly business ties and financial gains can be traced all the way back to Nazi Germany. The crime family’s matriarch and public face is Veronika Vanderberg, a sharp-tongued, blue-blood villainess, portrayed here by Rosamund Pike in a delightfully camp effort.
While the movie’s premise has some promise – if not, at least, curiosities such as Pike’s fantastically hammy South African accent – it often plays more like a rehash of tricks and gags that we’ve already seen twice before. Overall, the film seems content to stick with an uninspired show of smoke and mirrors and the gloss of CGI rather than build on the spectacle of the original film’s maximalist set pieces.
Sessa, Eisenberg, Fisher, and Smith in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate/Supplied
While the original Now You See Me had a winking audacity that leaned into the absurdity of its bag of tricks, the newest installment feels rote and lacks the thrill of genuine surprise. In the lead-up to the group’s big finale illusion, Jack plays a life-sized match of three-card monte that leads nowhere more interesting than a completely regular version of the game; and Danny, playing God, transfixes the weather (not as exciting as it sounds). It’s an underwhelming array of stunts so thinly plotted they seem almost like an afterthought. Altogether, the sum of illusions feels exactly the opposite of magic.
People die and come back to life, cards slice through the air as freaky magician weapons, and mirrors and doors contain a multitude of destinations. It’s an almost verbatim replay of the previous two films’ armaments of deception, with a sleight of hand that has been markedly dulled. For sure, a trick repeated once too often will inevitably come to trick no more.
Woody Harrelson as Merrit McKinney and Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate/Supplied
The performances, too, seem to suffer from autopilot fatigue. Eisenberg retains his clipped cynicism – though this time around, his character’s arrogance feels more weary than witty. Harrelson, ever the series’ jester/resident weird uncle, seems to have lost his footing in regard to his character’s strange charm. The film’s troupe of magician newcomers feel poorly sketched out, offered more as archetypes than characters. Likewise, the screenplay doesn’t quite seem to be able to weave together their motivations in the larger story world.
For a franchise built on surprise and misdirection, the spectacle of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is all too familiar and lacking in the sheer gusto and ridiculous flair that made the original movie such a hit. You’ll see it – and then, fittingly, you won’t think much about it again.