Now You See Me

Directed by Louis Leterrier. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine. 116 mins

A funny thing about magic. It’s always spoken about as if it’s a question of faith, of believing in spells and enchantments. But the joy actually comes from not believing – from being baffled at the practical mechanics that allowed your missing card to reappear, or wondering how exactly the bunny ended up in the hat. We love the human element of these illusions. It’s why we ask magicians how a trick was done. Hell, it’s why we call it a “trick.”
But there’s a big difference between feeling tricked and being cheated. There’s the rub with Louis Leterrier’s latest feature, Now You See Me. The ensemble caper centres on a quartet of showbiz magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco) who gain infamy when they use their powers of illusion to rob a bank, giving the money to their audience.
The politics are a sure-fire crowd pleaser, and the cast is solid. Harrelson and Eisenberg nicely deliver their trademark wise-guy one-liners, while Morgan Freeman is omniscient as ever as a James Randi-style magic debunker.
However the characters remain under-developed as the magicians try to elude Mark Ruffalo’s clichéd oafish detective. Increasingly convoluted tricks involve bank safes, car chases and Isla Fisher floating around in a bubble.
For a film about magic to work, the tricks must be grounded in reality. But Leterrier’s FX remove the story from the realm of possibility, and thus real enjoyment. Because where’s the fun in figuring it all out, when we know that what you’ve actually got up your sleeve is a green screen and millions of dollars’ worth of CGI?