Magic is still kind of lame

 

No offense, but magic is kind of lame.

I respect those who practice it, but if you are really (really) into Magic you probably "aren't getting much tail". Many films have tried to make it cool, and this one tries perhaps a bit too hard. Christopher Nolan's excellent "The Prestige" was just cool because it had David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla. Yep.

"Now You See Me" tries very, very hard, using overblown, swooping camera movement, breathless dialogue breathlessly spoken by a, well, breathless cast. And some seemingly clever tricks that -- spoiler alert -- get explained. And the First Rule of Magic Club is that you never, ever explain the trick.

What almost saves "Now You See Me" is a pretty clever plot which, wait for it, is kind of a magic trick itself. See how I did that? Some unseen force has brought together a group of street magicians to form a lamely named group called The Four Horseman, which is mildly micro-aggressive because one of those men is a woman, played by Isla Fisher. This group includes characters played by Jesse Eisenberg (whose young-ish, brash sleight-of-hand artist is pretty much the epitome of "no really, magic IS cool" uncool), Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco, and is slated to perform three progressively more impossible acts, culminating in a complex, Apocalyptic bit performed on the rooftop of an abandoned building in, what, Queens?

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. What further saves the film is the presence of Adults in the room, in the form of Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Wait, weren’t they together in a couple of Christopher Nolan films? The scene in the Voodoo Shop in New Orleans where Caine and Freeman have it out is an example of what happens when two great actors have pretty good material to work with.

Look, if you love Magic, you have to see “Now You See Me”. If you don’t love Magic, you should still see it, as it is entertaining and has, as they say in the Magic world, a “Turn” and then a “Big Reveal” at the end. If all of that is just tiresome to you, then pass this one by.