Now You See Me - A Magical Movie

It's a rare movie that dupes me in the end.  I usually have if figured out long before the halfway point.  This time, I was playing with the right deck, I'd just picked the wrong card.  Now You See Me is a movie that keeps you guessing until the end.  Everyone always watches magic and says or thinks, "how'd they do that?"  But, that's not what you will be doing while watching this movie; you'll be trying to figure out who's really running the show and why?

Now You See Me is a clever movie about 4 street magicians who are mysteriously brought together, and a year later go from crap magic to being huge Las Vegas stars known as The Four Horsemen.  Merritt (Woody Harrelson) is a mentalist/hypnotist who is great at guessing people's secrets.  Then there's J. Daniels Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) who is a natural born leader and performs classic magic, slight of hand type tricks.  Henley, J. Daniels' former assistant turned show stopper, played by Isla Fischer, is an escape artist.  Lastly, there is the youngster of the group, Jack (Dave Franco), who is a very skilled con artist.  Together, they create large scale magic shows that has the whole world talking.  Their bank robbing magic trick gets the police, FBI, and Interpol involved led by FBI agent Dylan Rhodes played by Mark Ruffalo.  Agent Rhodes together with Interpol agent Alama Vargas (Melanie Laurent) from France rely on the expertise of Morgan Freeman's character, Thaddeus, to try and catch The Four horseman. Thaddeus Bradley is an ex-magician who spills magic secrets to the world via his viral internet show. Oh, and ladies, Common is in the movie too.  His part is small, but he's on the screen long enough to get a good look.

I was greatly intrigued from start to finish.  Like I said, I was still trying to answer the who and why with 20 minutes left.  I'm glad it didn't move so fast.  Sometimes, like Scandal, people are talking too quickly and the action goes so fast that you miss too much to understand what's happening.  This movie is not like that.  There is a lot of action and the magic tricks are cool, but it has a great balance that keeps you entertained.  I liked it enough that I'd watch it again and again.  Now You See Me is a must see.

Next week, The Internship and The Purge are out at theaters.  I'm not sure which one I'll see if either.  But check back here next week.