2/13/2024 0 Comments Now you see me card scene![]() The Four Horsemen-including newcomer Lula ( Lizzy Caplan), a geek trick specialist who replaces the last film's Henley Reeves ( Isla Fisher)-get ensnared in a diabolical scheme masterminded by billionaire Walter Mabry ( Daniel Radcliffe), who has access to a chip that can instantly scoop up private data from every mobile device on the planet. Like the last film, it has a lot of plot-so much that after a while it might as well not have any at all. The film is mainly horseplay, wasted motion, and talk, talk, talk, with a few good action scenes, the best of which involves the main characters passing a card back and forth in a laboratory, and enough smart-alecky banter between skilled actors that the time passes painlessly enough. And that's the true definition of magic-movie or otherwise."Now You See Me 2," which reunites the crusading magicians for another heist/adventure, offers more of the same narrative shortcuts, substituting extensive flashbacks, whirling camerawork and digital effects for a truly magical sensibility. I was surprised and impressed by the final result. So I suppose it's a credit to the early character work that, by the end, I wanted more than just the clever "how they did it" explanations. But by the end we understand that even this seemingly devaluating approach is foregrounded by design. The individual skill sets of The Four Horsemen (mentalism, slight-of-hand, theatrical illusions, street magic) and their relationship to one another is overshadowed by a police pursuit midway through the film. Being shown "how" something happened certainly satisfies our immediate curiosity, but this puzzle-piecing is also done at the determent of developing our central characters. Of course, like all good magic, much of it is misdirection. The pacing and quick character introductions do an effective job of drawing us in as the film unfolds. Once again, as quickly as the process of their deception is revealed, the story is a few steps ahead in setting up the third and final climactic trick. And soon we're on to the next show, which is much less mystical, but rife with consequence. ![]() And so they're set free, while Thaddeus proceeds to unravel their elaborate crime (albeit without the required proof). They welcome the publicity that accompanies their subsequent arrest, with Eisenberg's character proclaiming that if the process goes any further, the FBI will essentially be forced to "believe in magic at an institutional level". Thaddeus is recruited by mystified FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) when The Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Ilsa Fisher, and Dave Franco) shower an audience with three million Euros stolen from a French bank during one of their shows. Your role, David, was therefore probably much like Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) in the film: a former magician who makes a living selling trade secrets. Just ask David Copperfield, the man whose magic (according to the closing credits) "inspired" the film. The script takes as much pride in revealing secrets as it does in trying to trick the audience, and that's exactly what makes spectacle work on the big screen- and the Vegas stage. Now You See Me is definitely a fun movie. This impressive feat that you helped to orchestrate was a perfect hook, even if, afterwards, all the other illusions suffer predictably from…well, the standard movie magic.īut who cares. Sure enough, it was the card I had committed to memory (along, I suppose, with 90% of the audience). The audience is told to pick a card from a shuffling deck, and, moments later, a card lights up a skyscraper in the background. But that's exactly what we get in the very first scene of Now You See Me: a point-of-view illusion. When people marvel at movie magic, it's not usually card tricks caught on film.
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