By MadMax673

I don’t know when Hollywood’s darn strategy of bringing up an “unexpected” twist in the end is going to end.

A trick to make us watch it again and check for ourselves if what has played out in the friggin’ movie so far makes sense or not.

Either case audience loses money.

More importantly – we don’t want our normal IQs to be insulted.

Even if the movie is about a bunch of illusionists/magicians.

I was intrigued when I looked into the premise line of “Now You See Me” and its stellar cast – Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson, Michael Cain, Jesse Eisenberg and Mark Ruffalo etc.

Story

The movie starts with the introduction of four main magicians with their own expertise in various fields.

Jesse Eisenberg – the guy who played Mark Zuckerberg in “Social Network” with the same fast accent and cockiness plays one who has the dexterity to perform quick tricks.

Woody Harrelson – an expert in hypnotism.

Dave Franco – good at picking pockets and locks.

Isla Fisher – who has the bravado to let piranhas into a water tank, locks herself up and escapes from it out of no where.

One year later, a mysterious card from some “X” brings these four magicians together at Las Vegas and they form a team named “The Four Horsemen,” perform a magical heist together at a bank in Paris and shower the crowd with the robbed money.

They move on to New Orleans and then finally to New York for the final act.

How they outwit the FBI Agent Mark Ruffalo, the Interpol lady Melanie Laurent, an insurance company owner/wealthy financier Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in a game of “cat & mouse” and stay ahead forms the rest of the story.

But why are they doing this?

That comes in the form of a typical corny Hollywood twist which I can’t spoil.

Things that I liked

The dialogues between the characters play well.

I liked the place where Woody Harrelson casually flirts with Isla Fisher in the airplane.

The fight scene between Dave Franco and the cops was enjoyable. Him beating the cops by hurling cards at them giving them paper cuts was noteworthy. The place where Dave Franco repeats after Mark Ruffalo was funny.

Let downs

While the concept of the four illusionists pulling off the heist through magic is interesting, there is hardly a show stealing scene with regard to the heist through magic.

There are scenes that remind us of so many movies we’ve seen before.

While I am happy that the action scene was shot in daylight, it again reminded me of one of those Jason Bourne flicks.

Even the car chase.

The scene close to the end reminded to me of the climax from “V for Vendetta”.

The final twist might make one feel irritated. Coz you run the whole movie through your mind once again to see if it makes any sense at all.

And the revelation that follows doesn’t make clear sense.

While I understood it, I felt they could’ve shown it better.

With the final details just shown in brief glimpses, viewers might feel they’ve missed something.

Rating

The evening premiere drew a decent crowd.

When I walked out of the theatre after the movie I got this feeling for an instant “has the whole movie disappeared from my mind”?

Or maybe that is the creative intention behind this movie “Now You See Me”… “Now You Don’t”.

Oh well…I didn’t see you for a moment there and I don’t want to see you again.