Review of Now You See Me (2013) by Ajai K — 14 Aug 2014

The movie had a captivating premise: magicians who are plotting an international caper just to show that it is possible to do the seemingly impossible while a team of specialised Agents try to outsmart them. The pacing of the movie is constant and almost perpetually in motion, the tricks up their sleeves are baffling as well as charming. These elements are sufficeient to keep us watching the entire film and go on for the ride but it comes with a lot of mess in its way that by the time we finished the tour the car's all covered in murky layers plot problems, generic characters, forced romances and uneven script writing.

Throughout the movie there is constant movement, with the heists taking one after another and the subsequent investigation, chase, confrontation and the cycle being repeated involves the audience in the events onscreen a lot. The magic charms and delights us but at the same time it almost borders on the realm of fantasy in a few instances. The effect is kept throughout the film, constantly surprising us with its supposedly ingenious tricks and gimmicks that fools the audience as well as the FBI agents that are their chasing down the culprits.

The culprits, the heist-masters are a funny bunch, an odd mixture their to entertain as well indulge in magic for the their benefactor. They are representation of Taro entities therefore are mystical. They steal but do not keeps the spoils but instead does a Robin Hood gives it to the common people. They are tailor-made to be sympathetic and it works for a while but stripped down they aren't really interesting in and of themselves and are just superficial characters with appropriate depth to serve the function of the story. The others - the FBI Agent, The Interpol Agent and the Debunker are important to the plot, but only concerning the enigmatic aspect of it where they are their to muddle the already complicated script more or to indulge in a romantic relationship, carry out exposition and make the film achieve more excitement. Unfortunately they too suffer the same problems and it is very conspicuous that they are here to spicen up the story and not to give it greater depth.

The script is inherently very complicated because it has to address the logical concerns of being a magical escapade film in a real world setting. There are a lot of expositionary dialogues as well as sequence oriented ones which all seem lackluster and inept. The way the film concluded in order to address the glaring plot problems is thoroughly anti-climatic and almost lazy writing.

Apart from the aforementioned problems, the film is engaging because of the central premise of magic plus heist cop chase thriller. The film does not become preposterous and the magic is always there as sources of wonder and astonishment instead of being an insult on logic. The film could've way better but it's not a disappointing watch for the layman and for people willing suspending disbelief and obscuring the narrative obstacle, it is quite a ride to enjoy even thought the windscreen will be murky as the depths of Loch Ness.