Now You See Me and its sequel, Now You See Me 2 (such a dumb name), both released in the 2010s to moderate success. These two magical heist films, while not peak cinema, had a certain style that made them just fun to watch. The cat and mouse chase in the first film and Daniel Radcliffe’s manic villain in the second were just some of the highlights. But after the second film was released, there was silence, not a word. A third film seemed like a shoo-in, yet the announcement never came; it was almost like the third film vanished.
But, like all disappearing tricks, the object will reappear, and now we have Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (should’ve been the title of the second film), this time directed by Ruben Fleischer and with most of the main cast returning alongside some new blood. Has the long wait been worth it, or have these magicians forgotten all of their tricks?
It’s been 10 years since the Four Horsemen's last battle against corrupt and powerful individuals. But in those 10 years, things haven’t exactly gotten any better. Enter a new trio of magicians, Charlie, Bosco LeRoy, and June Rouclere, who are using the Horsemen name to continue the fight. However, their stunts catch the attention of Atlas, one of the OG Horsemen, as well as the secret society of magicians called The Eye. Atlas recruits the new trio for a job: to steal the Heart Diamond from Veronika Vanderberg, a South African mining magnate who is helping the worst people launder their money. This won’t be an easy task, as a mysterious person also wants the diamond for themselves. When shit inevitably hits the fan, Atlas may just need to recruit the rest of the Horsemen if there is any hope of pulling off this magic trick.
Going into this film, I had modest expectations that the story in this instalment would be decent. Hell, they had 10 years to work out all the kinks and two previous films that, in my opinion, were a pretty good foundation. Unfortunately, this story was one of the most bland and boring things I’ve watched this year. The plot, while having an interesting premise, is paper-thin and only exists to have characters meet up and do some magic tricks. And the tricks aren’t even all that good, with a vast majority of them relying on the old smoke bomb tactic. But what really made me turn on this story was the ending, which made me say WTF out loud in the cinema. It was such an asinine ending and was obvious sequel bait that this story did not earn at all.
The saving grace of this film is its actors, who do their best with what they’re given. The returning crew of Jessie Eisenberg as Atlas, Woody Harrelson as Merritt, Dave Franco as Jack, Isla Fisher as Henley, and Lizzy Caplan as Lulu put in solid work, with their banter being instrumental in keeping me awake throughout the film. Caplan was my personal favourite as she brought a fun vibe to the (limited) scenes she was in. Justice Smith as Charlie, Dominic Sessa as Bosco, and Ariana Greenblatt as June were fine enough, and I can see what they were going for with their characters mirroring some of the OG cast, but not enough was done to make me care about them, with some big payoffs between characters falling flat as a result.
Rosamund Pike plays the antagonist Veronika Vanderberg, and she certainly gives a performance. I wouldn’t say it was terrible as it was entertaining, though not for the intended reasons. For starters, Rosamund is a Brit, and the character is from South Africa, so an accent was required, and Rosamund’s was not good. The second she started speaking, I had to hold back laughter as she reminded me of an Aussie comedy group and their South African accents. Probably not ideal for your audience to be holding back laughter as your antagonist attempts to monologue and be threatening. Accent aside, she did a decent job; nothing groundbreaking, but fine enough for this film.
You might think I'm being too critical of this film, but that's only because I'm so disappointed by how much they've downgraded from the first two installments. The first films weren't perfect, but they had a certain charm I enjoyed, especially the first one, with its whole cat-and-mouse vibe, which is why it's unfortunate that this film seems to have forgotten what made the first two special, opting instead for generic action and unimaginative magic tricks. Yeah, sure, you could argue they wanted to be more realistic this time around, but who cares about realism in a film series where magicians rob people?
The overreliance on smoke bombs or sleight-of-hand tricks made it easy for me to predict how the characters would get through each situation, which I shouldn’t be able to do in a film like this. I want Atlas to stop the rain from falling or some overly complex card-throwing shenanigans because those are the moments that stick with you 10 years later.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was an underwhelming threequel that left a sour taste in my mouth. The story is bland with no real stakes aside from the generic bad guy doing evil shit, and it doesn’t deviate too far from that course. It isn’t helped by an overreliance on similar magic set pieces that, for the most part, are predictable. The performances do a lot of the heavy lifting in making this film watchable. I did have some fun with these characters, and some of the effects looked good. It’s just a shame that these magicians have lost that magic spark.
Have you seen Now You See Me: Now You Don’t? What did you think? Did you like it more than I did? Let us know in the comments where we can all agree that the South African accent was unintentionally hilarious.
