Now You See Me - I maghi del crimine

This is an interesting concept, surely not a genre played out much in Hollywood. The cast is jam packed with all stars giving great (but not their best) performances. The missing piece of the puzzle? Character development.

That's not to say that there is any lack of interesting characters, each of the four horsemen bring a very unique style to the movie (besides Henley, she's rather weak as a character), and the sheer amount of Talent present in each scene guarantees that you'll be entertained.

10/10? Hardly. But definitely a solid 8 for me. Entertaining, fun, and definitely a concept worth exploring on the big screen. Just remember, the closer you look, the less you'll actually see.

At this time, there are already 530 reviews for "Now You See It", so I'll try to be brief. The film is about a group of four magicians and mentalists who have been given a brilliant plan by an unseen genius. Again and again, the quartet perform seemingly impossible stunts and always seem many steps ahead of the police. And, in the process, they do HUGE magic tricks that are pretty much impossible. The presentation is VERY smooth and very slick and the overall production looks great. It has great music and effects. But, on the negative side none of this really makes a lot of sense and there is no way you can enjoy it if you think. This is especially true at the end (where there is a profession of love that comes from absolutely no where!!)--which is a gigantic cliché and made no sense whatsoever. The bottom line is that if you turn off you brain and enjoy it on a very superficial level, you'll enjoy it. If you try to make sense of it all, your head will explode. 'Nuff said.

"Now You See Me" (2013) is a tremendously fun film starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine.

Four magicians (Eisenberg, Harrelson, Fisher, and Franco) are invited to an address. Inside, they encounter a few tricks. A year later, these four have become The Four Horsemen and are doing a show in Las Vegas. They end the first performance that we see with a bank robbery that doesn't look like an illusion.

The FBI gets right on it and sends in an agent, Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) and Interpol sends one as well, Melanie Laurent (Alma Dray). Rhodes is arrogant and thinks figuring out how these four did it is going to be easy, but it isn't, even with the help of a big-time illusionist exposer (Freeman). Of course, that robbery isn't going to be their last as the agents become more and more frustrated.

Be ready for the twists and turns, distractions, and sleight of hand. Nothing is as it seems.

Highly entertaining film, with good performances from the young cast, working alongside two major pros, Caine and Freeman. I know the film is preposterous but so are a lot of plots. When a film is well done, I say just relax and go along with it. I'm always amazed at how people review a film like this as if it's Citizen Kane. My advice: If you want reality, don't watch movies.

"Now You See Me" came out of nowhere and became the sleeper hit of 2013, getting good word of mouth during its theatrical run. Having seen the movie for myself, I am kind of puzzled by its popularity. Certainly, the movie is far from the worst movies I have ever seen - it's colorful, and doesn't have a dead spot despite running almost two hours long.

But there were some things about the movie that annoyed me enough to prevent me from liking it. The biggest problem is with the characters. Except for Freeman's character, there is not one likable character in the movie. The law enforcement agents investigating the magicians are loud and obnoxious, and the four magicians come across as extremely smug. (Also, there is no attempt to give the magicians real and separate personalities - they all act alike.)

The characters were the main reason why I didn't like this movie, but there were other problems as well. One other major annoyance is the depiction of the magic acts. They have been jazzed up with CGI and other special effects so they don't feel like REAL magic acts - they come across as artificial. Also, as the movie progresses, the various feats the magicians pull off slowly become more unbelievable (and not fully explained) that eventually I wanted to cry out loud, "Oh, COME ON!" Less slight of hand and a more realistic approach would have been a much better approach.

(Note to Michael Caine fans: His role is really just an extended cameo appearance.)

This is one of those movies that is somewhat entertaining upon first viewing but is easily forgettable and has nothing of substance to make a second viewing possible to enjoy. The plot is convoluted as we don't know what the main characters are doing or why. In fact, everything we know about the 4 magicians is revealed in the first 10 minutes of the movie and after that there is ZERO character development! The entire movie appears to have been made solely for the sake of the ending and yet it was so cliché that I was actually a little angry about the way they did it. It's unfortunate that in the filmmaker's attempts to be clever they neglected the most fundamental elements of storytelling: plot and character.

Like a magic show without magic, you may find yourself somewhat entertained but inevitably wind up disappointed in the end because they left out the most important part of the show.