November Review: Now You See Me (2013)

Late last year I watched Now You See Me 2 (2016) while seeking some brainless background noise for tidying my office and doing a little doodling. It delivered, and as a consequence for publicly mentioning Now You See Me 2 (2016), I have now been sent back to its predecessor, Now You See Me (2013). The TLDR? I was right to jump straight to the sequel.

Now You See Me (2013) has on its face a great premise. What if we used magic to do heists? The classic heist film already makes use of many of the same tricks as magicians, misdirection, illusion, and the occasional body double. Magic also promises similar twists and second act "breakdowns," only to reveal everything went as planned all along just as a well-made heist would deliver. Despite this seeming perfect fit, Now You See Me (2013) just doesn't quite escape the sinking safe of its own convolution.

Following the escalating scheme of the Four Horsemen, a group of Robin Hood-style magicians who distribute the funds of the wealthy to patrons of their performances, the Horsemen find themselves pursued by the FBI and Interpol, as well as a well-known magic debunker. In its simplest form, this is a cat and mouse game of magicians and feds, with the FBI always one step behind our hero illusionists. A promised exciting back-and-forth, that falls flat as the Horsemen never once fail. There are no stakes. At every turn the Horsemen waste no time effortlessly evading the authorities and fooling audiences into participating in their tricks. There are twists and turns, but at no point is magic shown to be fallible enough that their ultimate plan has any doubt of succeeding. The more the film insists to its viewers that magic is about controlling perceptions, the more aware those viewers become that their perceptions are being constantly controlled.

Besides a shameful lack of stakes, the film plays its hand a bit too strong on its one significant twist. Spoiler alert for a now over 10 year old film, but the real mastermind behind all the events of the film, the fabled Fifth Horseman is revealed at the end to be none other than FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), the primary investigator on the Horseman case. The POV character for most of the film, his focus would seem to indicate that he is the audience surrogate, but as everyone around him tries desperately to point out the possible alternate Fifths, it becomes more and more apparent that he is the one Now You See Me (2013) does not want us to pay attention to. In order to keep his reveal as shocking as possible, Rhodes is denied any significant characterization, instead relegated to no backstory and a single-minded drive to catch the Horsemen. Even if one does not guess the twist, it's still hard to care when the true mastermind is revealed, because if he is not dead-set on stopping the Horsemen, what reason do we have to care about Rhodes?

This lack of characterization is a chronic problem throughout Now You See Me (2013). The Horsemen themselves are our ostensible heroes, but live in limbo between too familiar and too mysterious. We are shown just enough of them to think they will have character arcs to complete. They each have a simple if distinct personality, relationships to one another, and yet by the end they're barely on screen if they're not on stage. It makes their eventual conclusion, induction into a secret magic society, feel unearned. I haven't seen these people overcome anything save external circumstance, the audience hasn't seen their character arcs. Instead the barebones quad from the start of the film remains that barebones quad at the end, but now they have real magic. If the intent was that the Horsemen were mysterious, operating as a unit we could not get in the mind of, then we needed to see less of them throughout. If the intent was we care about how pulling off this trick will change the Horsemen as people, we needed to see more. Now You See Me (2013) instead comes off as indecisive, unwilling to bet on the charisma of its cast as they play ostensibly magnetic personalities.

Despite the lack of movie magic within, Now You See Me (2013) does have its moments. It's fun to see tricks performed on stage, especially for the filler scenes where how it's pulled off remains unexplained. In particular, the brief scuffle between Rhodes and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) stands out as a great use of simple illusions applied to a kinetic, fast-paced fight. It's in these rare moments where the film trusts its audience to buy in to the magic that Now You See Me (2013) shines.

Overall, Now You See Me (2013) is an insecure, at times boring, but very very shiny mess. It can be fun, but the twists and turns are largely buried under far too many minutes of exposition laying bare the magic. If you want to get lost in the silly spectacle of magicians getting one over on the man, watch Now You See Me 2 (2016). If you feel the deep need to complete the series, I guess we'll always have Now You See Me (2013).

4 out of 10 Cards Picked