guy who’s nearing meltdown over his failure to nail these tricksters. Ruffalo fulminates up a storm as the F.B.I. If you can’t figure out the big reveal, you’ve probably dozed off, a fair response to a movie that gets damagingly worse as it goes along. From where I sit, Now You See Me is at least two steps behind. Eisenberg’s sleight-of-hand artist tells us magic is all about misdirection and being six or seven steps ahead of the audience. And this one lands with a resounding thud. With the thrill of live performance off the table, there’s only story. They’re movies, which means anything really is possible thanks to special effects and editing. Take that, Oprah! But here’s the thing about movies about magic.
It sucks us in with real flair as Eisenberg, Harrelson, Franco and Fisher take the stage as The Four Horseman, magicians who can rob a bank (in France yet) before a Vegas audience and let the money rain down on them. Now You See Me, directed on hack-attack mode by Louis Leterrier ( Clash of the Titans, The Incredible Hulk) from a false-promises script by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, does just that. It takes a certain dark magic to make the talent of a top cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman) disappear right before your eyes.
