Now You See Me is a brilliant idea for a movie. It centres around the idea of four magicians utilising their skills to rob money from different places and share it with their audiences. It all hinges on the four main characters played by Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fischer and Dave Franco, who I am happy to report are the best thing about this movie.
Woody Harrelson is a stand out. You can see how much fun he is having with this role, and its amazingly entertaining and somewhat believable. The way he spouts his 'mentalism' and the way he bounces off the other actors as he does it was my favourite thing about the movie. Not far behind him is the very intriguing Jesse Eisenberg who has that fast talking, magician like face and again is somewhat believable in being the smartest guy in the room (the first rule of being a magician). Isla Fischer plays a great character who started as a lowly assistant but is now right up there with the others, but Dave Franco has to be one of the most underused characters Ive ever seen in a film? He is obviously just a plot device and it was a bit disappointing to see. How about we throw in some smaller roles for Sir Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and we are on the way to a stellar cast!
Aside from the cast the opening of this movie is excellent. It builds intrigue, introduces the characters and has a great time doing it. I was sitting there with a big smile on my face totally engrossed. Then comes the first big show and the alarm bells started ringing. They use CGI for most of the tricks. And bad CGI. I mean, if you are trying to do a movie about tricking the audience, how can you cop out and use obvious fakery such as CGI? It was the start of growing disappointment as the movie wore on.
You see, the whole film is setup for a payoff at the end. You as the audience is sitting there in expectation awaiting the reveal to hopefully squeal with delight and clap you hands together. But if you set a movie up like that, you HAVE to deliver. You cant have half a great movie and be done with it. Im not sure if its a casting issue, a script issue, an editing issue or a little bit of everything but by the end (even though I didn't guess the right twist) I was just left feeling flat.
SCORE: 5/10
IMDB Info for Now You See Me
Woody Harrelson is a stand out. You can see how much fun he is having with this role, and its amazingly entertaining and somewhat believable. The way he spouts his 'mentalism' and the way he bounces off the other actors as he does it was my favourite thing about the movie. Not far behind him is the very intriguing Jesse Eisenberg who has that fast talking, magician like face and again is somewhat believable in being the smartest guy in the room (the first rule of being a magician). Isla Fischer plays a great character who started as a lowly assistant but is now right up there with the others, but Dave Franco has to be one of the most underused characters Ive ever seen in a film? He is obviously just a plot device and it was a bit disappointing to see. How about we throw in some smaller roles for Sir Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and we are on the way to a stellar cast!
Aside from the cast the opening of this movie is excellent. It builds intrigue, introduces the characters and has a great time doing it. I was sitting there with a big smile on my face totally engrossed. Then comes the first big show and the alarm bells started ringing. They use CGI for most of the tricks. And bad CGI. I mean, if you are trying to do a movie about tricking the audience, how can you cop out and use obvious fakery such as CGI? It was the start of growing disappointment as the movie wore on.
You see, the whole film is setup for a payoff at the end. You as the audience is sitting there in expectation awaiting the reveal to hopefully squeal with delight and clap you hands together. But if you set a movie up like that, you HAVE to deliver. You cant have half a great movie and be done with it. Im not sure if its a casting issue, a script issue, an editing issue or a little bit of everything but by the end (even though I didn't guess the right twist) I was just left feeling flat.
SCORE: 5/10
IMDB Info for Now You See Me
Cast was fine. Premise was fine. Script failed big time. Lots of deus ex machine going on. Things happen just because they can. The first half of the movie is great. The second half is a complete cop out. The most disappointing movie of the year. 3/10
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed it :) Again I blame the wine factor!
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