Now You See Me: Now You Don’t Review

The Now You See Me series has returned after a nine-year break and sees a new generation of magicians join the Four Horsemen.

The Four Horsemen have not performed together for 10 years until a surprise appearance in the Bushwick neighbourhood of New York City. However, this gig was really performed by three young magicians, Bosco Leroy (Dominic Sessa), June McClure (Ariana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith), and they used the performance to steal from a group of corrupt Cryptobros. This trio ended up being recruited by J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), one of the original Horsemen, to go to Antwerp to steal the Heart Diamond from Venonika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), a diamond tycoon and money launderer.

The Now You See Me series has been a perfectly decent, if unremarkable, set of films. They were especially Ocean-style heist movies that use stage magic and illusions. The first film showed the Horsemen to be Robin Hood-style thieves who robbed a sleazy insurance company, and this showed the Horsemen getting blackmailed to steal a microchip for a tech bro. The films have had a similar trajectory to the Fast & Furious movies, where the first Fast & Furious was a crime film about infiltrating a gang that stole DVD players in California, but morphed into a series of international spy movies with star-studded casts. The two groups of magicians said they were in a family like Dom Toretto’s crew. All the Now You See Me films have been ludicrous affairs, just like Fast & Furious.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t offers more of the same. It was an adequate film, made by an adequate filmmaker, for an adequate series. This film was about the set-pieces and heists. The characters got to go to picturesque locations: in the threequel the characters visited Antwerp, Abu Dhabi, and a chateau in France. People who enjoyed the first two films should enjoy Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, as the characters come up with elaborate plans for missions in historic Europe and the modern Middle East. Pike’s character was essentially a Bond villain since she was a tycoon who spoke with a thick South African accent and had a flair for the theatrical. Vanderberg’s boardroom meeting felt like the PG-13 version of O-Ren Ishii’s meeting with the Yakuza bosses in Kill Bill.

Ruben Fleischer has taken the directing duties. Fleischer started off with the excellent Zombieland, but has become more of a gun-for-hire director. He seemed to have used his experience making the Uncharted movie when making Now You See Me, since the Horsemen had to do a lot of puzzle-solving and action. June had parkour skills that made her feel like Tom Holland’s version of Nathan Drake.

The Now You See Me movies have been compared to the Mission: Impossible series. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s screenplay structure felt a lot like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning because it was made up of exposition, trivia, and planning between the heists. It wasn’t a story, it was just an excuse to get from set-piece to set-piece. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t even had a mask reveal, which is a popular trope in the Mission: Impossible movies.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t brought in a trio of up-and-comers with Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), Justice Smith (I Saw the TV Glow) and Arania Greenblatt (65, Barbie). Sessa was the most impressive out of the newcomers. He acted as the de facto leader of the trio; he was the showman, and he had a similar role and personality to Atlas, so they ended up clashing with each other. Smith’s Charlie was the behind-the-scenes tech expert and a nerd. His role was to spout out facts and trivia about magician-related history, although it was better than his last nerdy tech role in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Greenblatt made the least impression, which was a shame because she had impressed in previous roles. She was just a snarky kid who was hanging out with a group of adults. June didn’t look older than 16, so it was hard to believe she could infiltrate elite events.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t keeps to the standard of the previous films, and fans should be satisfied with this long-awaited sequel. It’s a functional, disposable film.