A trio of new recruits helps the fabled Four Horseman steal a priceless diamond from a South African magnate in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, a belated sequel opening in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. There are enough fun bits of magic, illusion, and complex heists to provide suitable distraction here, but a near-complete lack of narrative tension makes this the weakest of the three Now You See Me movies. The real trick here is the filmmakers convincing the audience that they’ve had a good time.
Nearly a decade after events of Now You See Me 2, the original world-famous Four Horseman—J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher, returning to the series after sitting out the sequel)—reteam for the first time in 10 years for their big comeback magic show… at an underground bar that can hold around 100 people.
But after swiping a cryptobro’s digital wallet and distributing the funds to members of the crowd, the cryptobro rushes the stage… only to discover the entire show was an illusion! Yes, Bosco Leroy (Dominic Sessa), Charlie (Justice Smith), and June (Ariana Greenblatt) created an elaborate deepfake and conceived this very particular attention-attracting performance in order to achieve what a good hacker could have done in a few minutes.
Of course, the attention is the point. This kind of superfluous showmanship is a hallmark of a franchise where these master magicians could easily accomplish any heist they wanted if they didn’t have to make a big show of it. The filmmakers are doing the same thing as they get us to tsk-tsk the obvious use of CGI in that opening scene, and then pull out the rug from under us as they reveal that the CGI was part of the trick. You got us.
It’s all good fun—at least until you start to think about it. The problem with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is that it gives the audience too much time to think. The plot of the movie involves mysterious cabal The Eye gathering the new magicians and the old ones, with Lizzy Caplan‘s Lula May (who replaced Fisher in the sequel) to boot, for some kind of mysterious plan that only fully comes together at the very end of the movie.
The Eye has the same problem as Anonymous—anyone could be sending these messages—but none of these eight characters question what they are doing, who they are doing it for, or why they are doing it for the duration of the movie. The first step in the plan is stealing the priceless Heart Diamond from Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), a villainous diamond tycoon who helps arms dealers launder their money. Once a Bond girl, Pike is in full Bond villain mode here, and steals the film as she devours her South African accent with the zeal of Joss Ackland in Lethal Weapon 2.
The magic-infused heist at an Antwerp museum is undeniably fun, with the audience kept in the dark alongside Vanderberg. There’s a lot of silly stuff in here, including a cardboard helicopter that shouldn’t be fooling anyone, but also some genuine magic skill, including a fun quick change routine and some impressive sleight of hand—and a satisfying “aha!” moment when the trick is finally revealed. Of course, they could have also stolen the diamond without drawing any attention to themselves. But where’s the fun in that?
By the end of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t‘s first act, the screenplay—credited to Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, and Seth Grahame-Smith, from a story by Eric Warren Singer—has effectively resolved itself. The heist has been pulled, the villain defeated, and the characters reunited as they sail off into the sunset.
The rest of the movie involves the characters, and the audience, trying to work out why they’re doing what they’re doing, and why they are doing it, by following cryptic clues left by The Eye. We expect a big twist, but Now You See Me: Now You Don’t culminates in a 10-minute explanation, and it’s not an especially satisfying one. None of what has transpired was necessary aside from serving as a misdirect for the audience.
Sure, there’s enough razzle-dazzle throughout to distract us: a chase through a mirror maze that includes an M.C. Escher-esque impossible staircase, a hand-to-hand fight in an illusory Ames room and an Inception-like rotating corridor, a Formula 1 chase through the streets of Abu Dhabi, and a redux of the water tank trick that nearly killed Fisher in the original film—but this time, with all the Horsemen in the tank.
But we’re not watching a magic show, and at some point we demand a sensible story to justify the time we invest in watching this movie. That’s simply too tall an order for Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. Ruben Fleischer directs with a slick, commercial sheen, and the cast keeps the energy buoyant—Eisenberg and Sessa, in particular, share a combative rapport that gives the film some much-needed spark. But all the charm here can’t disguise a script built on misdirection without meaning.
