The magic is mostly gone from this franchise
Film critic Jason Evans is here to tell you everything you need to know about movies in less time than it takes to guess your card. His reviews are exactly 100 words long (99 is too short while 101 is just excessive). Here is his 100-word review of Now You See Me, Now You Don’t.
The Premise: It has been more than a decade since the Four
Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Isla Fisher) wowed
the world with both their magic and their skill at taking down corporate crooks.
Suddenly ads start popping up indicating they are back to their old tricks.
Just one problem, it isn’t the Horsemen, it is three young magicians who are
pretending to be the famous quartet. When the real Horsemen show up, the entire
group realizes they have been put together for a reason… to bring their brand
of magical justice to evil diamond merchant Veronika Vandenberg (Rosamund Pike sporting a ridiculous South African accent).
The film is directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom). The cast also
includes Morgan Freeman, Lizzy Caplan, Justice Smith (Jurassic World, Dungeons
& Dragons), and Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers).
The 100-words: While the Horsemen have good on-screen
chemistry, especially Isenberg and Harrelson, this flick is too crowded as the
plot and the players veer from one absurd situation to the next. A big failing
is that the magic isn’t even moderately believable. We aren’t watching clever
tricks, just one digital effect after another and it gets stale. The collective
charisma of the cast helps keep this from being a slog, but the staple surprises
and twists feel strained and unearned. I love magic and wish we could get a
movie that makes real illusions part of the story. These films don’t.
As a South African Rosamund's South African accent was perfect. One of the very few American/Britsh actors whose ever gotten it right.
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