Now You See Me

6 out of 10 stars

Cast

Jesse Eisenberg.............J. Daniel Atlas

Isla Fisher.....................Henley Reeves

Woody Harrelson.........Merritt McKinney

Dave Franco.......................Jack Wilder

Morgan Freeman........Thaddeus Bradley

Mark Ruffalo....................Dylan Rhodes

Mélanie Laurent....................Alma Dray

*****WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS*****

So I will be honest, I found myself getting extremely exasperated with this movie despite my hopes for it to be great. I will admit that when I saw the previews for this movie, I had high hopes. My mistake. I mus say that I was rather disappointed in the movie. 

Don't get me wrong, the concept of the movie, the actual idea of it was brilliant. I am always a sucker for magic tricks, and this film was full of them. And I don't mean cheap cut-the-pretty-lady-in-half kind of magic, I mean that's-not-even-remotely-possible magic. Now it doesn't quite rival Christopher Nolan's the Prestige if you've ever seen that, but it was pretty good.

I just felt like the story could have been told in a much better way. Of course if any of you have read my posts long enough or know me personally, you know that I strongly dislike love stories. And guess what? There was a love story in this movie. It was between Mark Ruffalo and Mélanie Laurent's characters. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded it if it had been between two different characters. It just seemed like the love story didn't really fit in with the rest of the story. The whole thing seemed awkwardly placed and distracting. 

But I think the rest of the movie was pretty good. 

I've discovered that I think Jesse Eisenberg can only play one character. J. Daniel Atlas is remarkably similar to Eisenberg's character in The Social Network. I know that's only two movies but from other short clips that I've seen Jesse Eisenberg in, he seems to always play the narcissistic, conceited, know-it-all. 

But for this character, I do believe he was the right choice. I don't know if I liked J. Daniel Atlas, but I appreciated his character in the movie. Eisenberg's character is a well-known magician who used to work with Isla Fisher's character, Henley Reeves. He was definitely the leader of the Four Horsemen (the group name of the four magicians) and I like card tricks so I guess I did think he was pretty cool. 

Okay so I know I've heard Isla Fisher's name before so I've probably seen her in something, but I can't remember. Anyway, I didn't really like her character. Henley Reeves used to work with J. Daniel Atlas but they split up after many disagreements. Henley went off to work by herself and performs big shows on stage in front of huge crowds.

If any of you remember, I don't often like the main girl characters in movies, especially in action movies. This one isn't a full-blown action movie, but it's kind of action-y. I don't know, I just thought she was annoying and I didn't like her. 

I can't lie, Woody Harrelson was my second favorite character in this movie. Harrelson's character, Merritt McKinney is a mentalist, or as some people call them- "psychic", which basically means he hypnotizes people, reads body language, and plays mind games on people. 

Harrelson was the comic relief of the movie. He always had some wise-crack one-liners. I thought some of his lines were cheesy, but I suppose I can't blame him for the dialogue. I personally love characters who play mind games on people. Plus, I usually like side-characters better than the main characters so while Woody Harrelson was definitely an important character in the movie, I don't think he was one of the main characters so I liked him better than Eisenberg or Fisher's characters. 

Let me rant about Dave Franco. I loved his character. He was definitely my favorite. Dave Franco's character, Jack Wilder, is a small-time magician but a skilled pick-pocket and thief. If there is anything I love more than a mentalist, it's a pick-pocket. 

Anyway, I haven't seen Dave Franco in much, but I thought he did an amazing job in this movie. He was a young, eager, and slightly naive fanboy of J. Daniel Atlas who will do anything the other Horsemen tell him to do. I thought he was really sweet and I from what I heard from the people I went to see this with, he was most people's favorite character.

So what did we all learn a couple weeks ago? No one hates Morgan Freeman. And once again, he was good in this movie. It wasn't his best, but I mean when has Morgan Freeman ever gone wrong? Exactly. 

So Morgan's character, Thaddeus Bradley, is a former magician that goes to current magicians's shows and tries to expose them and how they perform their tricks. Throughout the movie, he tries to expose the Four Horsemen. At first, he struggles, but eventually he finds out how all the tricks were performed. However, when he eventually does find out how it's all done, he's a bit too late. 

Okay one of my dearest friends is obsessed with Mark Ruffalo. I used to not-sort-of-really like him but now because of my infatuated friend, I'm starting to be okay with him. So his character, Dylan Rhodes, is an FBI agent who is put on the case for the Four Horsemen (since the robbed a bank during one of their shows). First off, I really like the name Dylan. But at first, I didn't really like Dylan. HOWEVER, at the end of the movie, I loved him. Well.... not the very end. The last scene of the movie was dumb and irrelevant, but the scene right before that was ridiculous. I liked him a lot for the last ten minutes of the movie.

Hate is a strong word so I'm just going to say that I strongly disliked Mélanie Laurent's character in this film. Like no. Just no. Mélanie Laurent herself is probably a brilliant actress (she's French so I haven't seen her in any other movies), but her character was just...... annoying. 

So overall, this movie was.... decent. I loved the magic tricks because well.... I love magic, but some of the story was dumb. The characters were entertaining, however, and the ending.... whew.

Everything changes in the end. 

Everything.

Sources

Images-Google

Cast-IMDb