Sunday, June 2, 2013

Now You See Me (2013): Review

Today I went to see Now You See Me and I absolutely loved it. This movie encompassed what I love about movies and the enjoyment of watching a movie just sent to entertain me will touching on things I loved from my childhood (magicians) and although you know there will be twists and turns you spend your time trying to see what directing the story is going to go next.  At times, there were some obvious plot twists (less then I thought there would be) but this did not bother me, I just enjoyed going along for the ride.
Now You See Me follows four magicians who at the beginning are brought together to form the magic group The Four Horsemen.  They are Jesse Eisenberg playing J. Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson playing Merrit McKinney, Isla Fisher playing Henley Reeves, and Dave Franco playing Jack Wilder.  Besides being distracted by trying to figure out why Jack looked so familiar (he's a Franco), I like how the movie starts by introducing and bring together the four main magicians.  It demonstrates their talents and how they are working on a street level,  we are introduced to the mystery of the big illusion they will start to work on and the tone of the rest of the movie is set.  We jump forward to the rob a bank magic trick that is shown in the trailer and Morgan Freeman's character is introduced as a man who's job it is to debunk magic tricks.  As The Four Housemen play out their sequence of misdirections and illusions they are pursued by FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo and Interpol Agent Alma Dray, played by Mélanie Laurent.
There are lots of characters in this movie, but I had no problems following who they are and how they fit into the movie, with the misdirections and distractions thrown in, they help to show the who is where and doing what feel of the movie.  With less main characters it would have been difficult to pull this off.  I like how Morgan Freeman is kind of the narrator, but not really of the movie, as he is used to explain how the magic tricks are being pulled off to the agents in the film but to the audience as it goes along. As he plays a character who is doing this in the story it works for me.  I liked how this movie was cast and feel that everyone fits who they are suppose to be and how you are suppose to feel about them.  I love the banter of Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson as well as the moments between the pair of detectives.  The only person who was slightly off was Mark Ruffalo, as he never really embodied the curmudgeon but he gives it a good go. 
I liked how the movie kept going at a good pace and had lots of things thrown in there.  I am sure that I missed a bunch and I am excited to go back and watch it again to see more of these.  It was nice to look at and I think the special effects are worked in wonderfully. They were not distracting at all.
I really liked this movie and thought that it was fun all the way trough.  There was enough story to keep it going, good chemistry to make it interesting, and it was centered around Magic, which has always been a joy of mine.  Basically I recommend that you go and see this movie and support the type of movie it was so more get made. It was fun all the way through!

My Rating: 4-

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