The Now You See Me movies’ greatest trick is being about magic while having absolutely none of it.
Over two films, the last of which debuted nine years ago, this flair-free franchise has conjured not a single thrill from the exploits of its Robin Hood-ish illusionists, who steal from the rich and give to the poor. They remain preposterous sleight-of-hand heroes in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.
Pairing the original Horseman with a trio of new recruits, Zombieland and Uncharted director Ruben Fleischer’s threequel, which hits theaters Nov. 14, peddles ruses at which to roll your eyes and stunts at which to laugh. Its most impressive feat, however, is finding a way to somehow be even duller than its predecessors.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s sole successful deception is Rosamund Pike’s South African accent, whose authenticity stands in stark contrast to the rest of this wannabe-razzle-dazzly affair.
In a Bushwick warehouse, the Horsemen—J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher)—reunite to wow a crowd of insanely excited fans, save for the awful crypto bro (Andrew Santino) who turns out to be their target. Yet the real con is that the Horsemen aren’t actually in the building; rather, this magical do-gooding has been perpetrated by Bosco Leroy (Dominic Sessa), June (Adriana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith), three friends who are following in the Horsemen’s footsteps by sticking it to the powers-that-be on behalf of the little guy.
Before they can celebrate their triumph, these mini-Horsemen are visited by Danny, who’s received a tarot card instructing him to team up with them in order to ruin Veronika Vanderberg (Pike), a diamond magnate whose family fortune is backed by possession of a $500 million fist-sized rock known as the Heart Diamond.
Danny wants to pilfer this precious jewel for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, and audiences will have trouble grasping why Veronika has chosen to display this priceless artifact in public; as with the prior two films, Fleischer’s feature (written by Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, and Seth Grahame-Smith) relays key plot points with a hyper-rapidity meant to obscure their inanity.
Regardless of the nonsensical particulars, the quartet travels to Antwerp, with Danny and Bosco squabbling because both view themselves as the top dogs of their (and, by extension, this) crew. To snatch the Heart, they use disguises and misdirections that are meant to be funny and clever but come across as corny and underwhelming.
The film’s habit of explaining, after the fact, how they pulled off their missions is even more deflating, considering that their scams require elaborate props, costumes, and equipment that they couldn’t possibly have procured in their short windows of opportunity. This glaring issue is at the core of what has always been the series’ biggest problem: the Horsemen’s tricks are only achievable through cinematic magic, which renders them no more remarkable than any other practical or CGI big-screen effect.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t wants viewers to take the Horsemen and their talents seriously but then has them change outfits, appear and disappear, and make things float and fly in supernatural fashion. Fortunately, Merritt’s gift for hypnotizing people—arguably the Horsemen’s least believable skill—goes mostly unutilized.
Yet there’s plenty of other drivel to help fill out this globetrotting adventure. In the process of acquiring the Heart, Danny and his acolytes are joined by Merritt, Jack, and Henley, who give perfunctory reasons for why they broke up (it has to do with Mark Ruffalo’s MIA Dylan Rhodes) and what they’ve been up to, and then they head to France, where they take up temporary residence at a famous magic chateau that’s filled with rare artifacts and is home to an accomplice who gives them advice as they check out rotating, forced-perspective, and funhouse-mirror rooms.
Tragedy is in the cards for the Horseman, primarily so they can have a very personal reason for going after Veronika, who’s dealing with not just these wannabe-David Blaines but also a mystery man threatening to expose a past crime (involving the murder of a child) if she doesn’t hand over the Heart.
Pike’s cool, poised corporate titan is for long stretches the only participant worth paying attention to in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, her icy arrogance delivered with a big, bright, personable smile. While she’s another of the franchise’s stock capitalist villains, the actress has a vibrancy that’s completely absent in the Horsemen. With a second-act surprise, the material manages a couple of funny one-liners, and those brief flashes of humor provide a glimpse of the far sillier and superior film that, in more capable hands, this wearisome slog might have been.
As with its ancestors, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is a heist film that fails to generate suspense because the mechanics of the robbery are all fantastical and, thus, meaningless. Of course the Horsemen are going to succeed at every turn, given that their abilities are, for all intents and purposes, literally magical.
In such a scenario, there’s no tension, just the enervating certainty that things will work out. It’s like if Heat’s Neil McCauley was a Mamdani supporter who could walk through walls, except far more obnoxious than that, since the Horsemen are a thoroughly self-satisfied bunch led by Eisenberg’s smug Danny and the equally cocky Bosco, who talk and strut about like they’re the coolest people on Earth rather than glorified carnival attractions.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s revelations are in keeping with those of the first film, and as is customary for a modern Hollywood sequel, great pains are taken to set up future installments, be they about Danny and the original gang or Bosco and his upstarts. Unless they can figure out how to ground these characters’ sub-Houdini hijinks in reality—or, conversely, turn the noble thieves into the outlandish cartoons they seemingly want to be—it would be best for all involved if this was the Horsemen’s final act.
