I have to be honest, while the Now You See Me movies may walk that perilous tightrope between flashy and obnoxiously smug, I’ve kind of gradually warmed to their self congratulating escapades and outlandish rug pulls. However, with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the Four (and counting) Horsemen seem to be gearing up to pull off their most riskiest illusion yet – a legacy sequel that’s magicked itself into existence nearly a decade after the last installment made its bow.
With virtually all of the original cast returning for yet another encore and a hungry set of young Horsemen to be nipping at their heels, the stage is set for an extravaganza of epic proportions. However, when it comes to performing acts of magic, the simpler you can keep things, the more chance you have of trick coming off without a hitch. So with double the cast and three times the scale, is Now You See Me 3 a case of now we’ve seen too much?
Nearly a decade after they last descended upon a corrupt CEO and extravagantly fleeced them for all they’re worth, it seems that the original Four Horsemen, Daniel Atlas, Henley Reeves, Jack Wilder and Merritt McKinney, have reunited and are up to their old tricks as they bamboozle some crypto bro out of his ill-gotten gains much to the delight of the crowd. However, as expected, things are not quite what they seem and rather than the infamous quartet, the con has actually been perpetrated by a trio of talented, young illusionists who only made it look like the Horsemen were responsible. This new group consists of quiet, behind the scenes, magic encyclopedia Charlie; lighting fast pickpocket June; and egotistical mimic Bosco, but as they clap themselves on the back for a job well done, they are soon visited by the actual Daniel Atlas who seems to be on something like a recruitment drive.
Working on behalf of The Eye, the secret organisation that sent the original Horsemen after their targets in the first place, Atlas has seemingly been slipped one of those super special tarot cards that’s prompted him to seek out these young pretenders and have them attempt to pull the old razzle dazzle on the insidious Veronika Vanderberg, the owner of a South African diamond company that’s up to it’s eyeballs in shady shit. However, as this group bicker, banter and try every trick in the book to swipe a gargantuan diamond known as “The Heart” out from under the nose of Vanderberg and her security team, they soon find that need some help.
Thanks to some more outsourcing from The Eye, it seems that the rest of the original Horsemen have also been called out of retirement to aid their new comrades, but will a grand total of six Horsemen still be enough to topple the Vanderberg empire, or will it take a few more familiar faces to get the job done?
While I’ve often been stuck somewhere in the middle between enjoying the Now You See Me movies for their camp ridiculous nature and muttering angrily under my breath at just how much these silly fucking movies expect me to swallow, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t finally settles the argument by being something of a sizable annoyance for the majority of its runtime. It’s big, it’s flashy and there’s Marvel style, legacy sequel cameos here there and everywhere, but the influx of new characters manages to completely overload the formula to the point of distraction. It’s that same issue that marred many a belated sequel that’s trying to juggle two completely seperate generations of cast and give them all something worthwhile to do – but the too many cooks issues are made all the more tedious by the fact that the classic characters are mere shadows of their already thin selves and the new guys are just too bland to truly make a dent.
Of the old guard, there’s not much here to wave an elaborate hand gesture at. Jesse Eisenberg’s prickly “leader” is mostly on snarky babysitting duties as he spoonfeeds the newbies through the Now You See Me basics, but he and the rest of the OGs suffer from the fact that they’re awarded absolutely no character progression whatsoever other than their lives all getting a bit shit in the interim. There’s numerous allusions to Woody Harrelson’s Merritt trying to drink himself to death, but nothing else to suggest if this is an actual abandoned storyline or some sort of tone deaf joke; Isla Fisher’s returning Henley (who was a no-show in NYSM2) literally adds nothing other than regularly bringing up that she has kids now; Dave Franco’s Jack apparently has been slogging away on cruise ships and is a bit sad; and finally, Morgan Freeman just looks as worryingly tired as Michael Caine did in the previous film and whenever he’s on screen faithfully delivering tedious exposition you just wish someone would let him sit down.
Similarly, while the fresh, new faces seem eager enough, they also are all as annoyingly smug as the original Horsemen were in their first film – but this time there’s no Mark Ruffalo to balance things out. Arianna Greenblatt is endearing enough, but the actress seems cursed to keep appearing in lifeless ensemble casts. Justice Smith fares better by being the only person present who seems to have an actual, tangible arc to play with, but his shy student of magic is basically the same, awkward character he played in Dungeons & Dragons only without real magic. Finally Dominic Sessa’s Bosco seems to unwisely be trying to top Eisenberg’s unlikability shtick while forgetting that Eisenberg has mastered the ability to be likeable while being unlikable.
Worse yet, the ensemble scenes are painfully stilted with the script literally scrambling to spread out the dialogue equally – even if it means farming out frequent utterances of “That’s right!” to actors far to talented to be playing second fiddle to endless exposition. Only Rosamund Pike’s classy villainess makes any real impact as her afrikaans accent tends to enter the scene 30 seconds before she does, and it really does make you how director Ruben Fleischer has gone from the fresh, funny anarchy of Zombieland to staging sluggish reveals and rug pulls that now tend to annoy rather than dazzle.
In fact, if you were to exchange the endless sleight of hands and that flippy card shit that Jack Wilder does for roaring muscle cars and an utter disregard for physics, the Now You See Me franchise is slowly morphing into something akin to the Fast And Furious movies thanks to repeated outbursts of pro-family outpouring.
Long term fans will probably squeal at all the throwback cameos and funky, illusion-filled rooms, but the rug pulls now have gone from surprising to being outright galling (numerous times I found myself muttering “oh for fuck’s sake” when another outlandish reveal was painfully spelt out) and the already thin characterisation has all but vanished into thin air. The movie may have the brass balls to leave itself open for yet another outing should the box office continue to work it’s magic, but as it stands it’s now a case of Now You See Me, Now You Probably Won’t.
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