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Now You See Me (2013) - ★★★★☆




In third grade, I got invited to the birthday party of one of my classmates which inexplicably was held in the teachers' room at our elementary school. This birthday party was, and continues to be, my only experience with a live magician. I remember being pretty impressed! I (still) think it's pretty cool that magic literally does exist and that you can pay a man in a funny suit to perform it at your eighth birthday party.

As far as non-live magic is concerned, I'm not sure if this counts, but I do have chronic heebie-jeebies from a certain knife eating (swallowing? I'm not sure what the term is) performance on America's Got Talent. I do not think that is a good kind of magic, if it's even considered magic at all.

I'm also familiar with a certain famous card game which is concerned with magic. Not sure how this works.

The magic in Now You See Me, is, of course, closest to the magic I witnessed at that third grade birthday party, which is to say it's pretty fun. In fact, I would say the magic in this movie was even more fun than the magic at that celebration, for three main reasons:
  1. The magician at the birthday party was not Woody Harrelson. One of the magicians in Now You See Me is Woody Harrelson, which is great.
  2. The magician at the birthday party did not steal from the rich and give to the poor. The magicians in Now You See Me not only steal from the rich and give to the poor, they do so several times in increasingly pranky ways. In my opinion, Robin Hood should have been a magician too!
  3. The magician at the birthday party did not perform any heists. I love heists. In fact, I think my love of heists comes from this very movie, which I did see for the first time around the time it came out. It's what introduced me to the concept of a heist, and what inspired me to perform multiple heists of my own. Suffice it to say, my life has never been the same.
In addition to fun and ethical magic performed by Woody Harrelson, Now You See Me has a couple other things going for it, like Bernie bro Mark Ruffalo and the simple and cathartic pleasure of having magic tricks explained to you.

The return of the "fun" dynamic between Woody and Jessie Eisenberg is probably also worth note. I do not like Jessie Eisenberg very much (though my reason for dislike is NOT this interview, which some people think is rude, but I think is just regular). He looks too much like other actors who play pasty arrogant dumb silly (but maybe smart?) guys and I really have no taste for it. I do see that he and Woody have good chemistry, though, so I won't get too worked up about it. 

As this movie came to a close, I was chomping at the bit to watch its sequel, Now You See Me 2 (and wondering why they wouldn't give it the obviously more fun name, Now You Don't). I had to wait a full day for my desire to be fulfilled, but luckily for you, my review of Now You See Me 2 is already posted, so you can take a look at it RIGHT NOW.

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