Louis Leterrier’s unlikely 2013 hit, Now You See Me, opens with an instruction: “Come closer… Closer… The closer you are the less you’ll actually see” uttered by the film’s unlikely hero, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg). What follows was an increasingly ridiculous, self-important and deeply fun crime caper, chasing “the four horsemen” as they swindled their way across America. Leterrier’s original film benefitted from extensive sequences that were increasingly knotted, full of illogical mirages and obfuscations and barely gripping onto any semblance of reality, but gamely gesturing towards real-world answers.
The newest offering in the franchise, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, boasts in a slew of new, magic-fuelled heists, and understands better than Now You See Me, or (the unfortunately titled) Now You See Me 2, that the audience doesn’t want to solve the puzzle, so much as sit back and know that the puzzle has answers. Like close-up magic, the Now You See Me films function best when you soak in the vibe rather than get close enough to unpick any machinations of magic trickery.
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Now You See Me: Now You Don’t opens at an abandoned warehouse in Bushwick, where Atlas, Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) have reunited to perform another four horsemen show. But the cult classic magicians are a ruse for three up-and-coming illusionists to swindle Rolex-wearing tech bros out of money. The younger trio are played by Hollywood up-and-comers Dominic Sessa (as Bosco), Justice Smith (as Charlie) and Ariana Greenblatt (as June), with Sessa particularly shining as the smug, quick-thinking Eisenberg analogue. Unfortunately, with 8‑plus main characters to juggle, the dynamic between this new group is only faintly sketched, a blurrily defined “found family” squeezed out in favour of reintroducing old heroes.
Early on, horsemen young and old are employed by “the Eye” – an ominously titled, circle of esteemed magicians – to steal the heart diamond from evil heiress Veronica Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike). Plans are followed and then spin out of control requiring a slew of increasingly outsized illusions. It’s probably in the film’s favour that the scope of what is possible with close-up magic is never adequately defined. Instead, director Ruben Fleischer stages the scene where the horsemen escape from Veronica’s gala with (laughably) excessive force, flinging playing cards with such power that they can cut the air like blades, exercising hypnotism so powerful that they can redirect security guards who are mid-run; these magicians are more akin to Marvel superheroes than cruise ship performers.
So many aspects of this film fall apart upon closer examination (how has no one caught the three younger horsemen? Are members of “The Eye” adhering to a code of conduct? Why is so much public money being spent on the police chasing magicians? Did the music supervisor blow the whole budget on using Lady Gaga’s ‘Abracadabra’?) but the film lives by Atlas’ early quote, encouraging its audience to step back and suspend disbelief. Early on, the four horsemen’s hologram lures an audience member onstage by announcing that “someone here came not to enjoy magic but to tear it down.” This invitation almost breaks the fourth wall, attempting to prove viewers wrong for any reservations, and by the end it’s hard not to enjoy the chaos that this sprawling cast leave in their wake.