Now You See Me

Trailer- Coming Soon

Now You See Me is this summer's all-star blockbuster that somehow hasn't got a whole lot of media attention. I suppose it's hard to stand out next to the explosion filled Sci-Fi that's mostly coming out this year. Now You See Me is very worthy of your attention however and manages to be a somewhat lighthearted good time while also managing to have a very clever plot.

Now You See Me follows 4 master magicians as they rob banks from 100s of miles away in front of screaming crowds and reward them with their swag. Every character was fun and likable in an almost cartoon-character kind of way. Everyone wise-cracks and there's no gritty realism here. Jesse Eisenburg's character is almost too quick with his comebacks but it helps the film stay quite light and stops the audience from thinking 'well this is all quite obviously impossible'. It's a film that knows its a film if that makes sense.

What really surprised me however was how twisty the plot became and without spoiling anything- this film features one of the biggest 'oh snap!' plot twists of possibly any film I've seen. What I thought was just poor story being panned off as 'they're magicians, they can do whatever they want' is actually all explained in detail. Half-unbelievable detail but it's explained nonetheless.

I'll just point out as well that there's a card trick at the start of the film that worked on me perfect. You'll see when you go to see it but it certainly left me feeling impressed just seconds into the film.

So what's wrong with it? At times I suppose it comes off as perhaps a little too cheesy and if you want intense interrogation scenes of people on the very edge you won't find it here. There are also points where the focus shifts from the magicians themselves to the less interesting people chasing them and there came a point where I just wanted to see more tricks. It's by no means slow, it rattles on at a great rate, but after seeing the big shows it's a bit of a come down when it's followed by several minutes of discussion about how it's all done.

It left me smiling and is a perfect film to watch with your family or on a date night. It's clever, it's fun and is quite refreshing after so many blockbusters this year try to go for the 'dark and real' approach.

8/10