Returning with a belated threequel, nine years after the second film, the ‘magicians pulling off heists’ franchise is back with more of the same, now with an attempted tinge at nostalgia and a clear aim to revive the series for more iterations. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite manage to pull off the trick.
The film sees the Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco) brought back together after a ten-year absence by a mysterious summoning from ‘The Eye’, the secret somewhat overlord of these films, that sets the Robin Hood-esque tasks for our core foursome. Except, this time, as is apparently the law for belated sequels (even for younger and less iconic franchises), they are joined by new blood in the form of three younger magicians (Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt and Justice Smith) who revere their idols but also, for the most part, seem solely there to take sardonic shots at them. Their mission? To steal the heart diamond from Rosamund Pike’s evil family corporation, who trade blood diamonds to arms dealers and may have had a history in helping Nazis?
Now, you don’t go into a Now You See Me film expecting something grounded in plausibility – its tricks are mainly helped by CGI and the overall film by a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief. You’re there to be entertained by a glossy, big-budget Hollywood film that doesn’t need to do much more than provide some thrills for a couple of hours. The first film provided a fun time and engaging premise (with characters and a subplot that did provide some grounding), the second was a shallow disappointment, and this time around, while the film retains its characteristic slickness, it has become entirely untethered. The whole film feels like a dream – you are drawn along by engaging set pieces and its fleeting pace (no time for character development or more than some heavy dialogue for exposition), but if you think about it at all, it doesn’t make any sense. The plot is incredibly light, a house of cards that the film itself delivers the fatal blow to in its third act. For a threequel in a franchise that so far provided diminishing returns, I was expecting silly, but I wasn’t expected to leave feeling so dumbfounded by the end (not in a good way).
The almost doubling of our main protagonists leaves the screen time spread so thin that we barely get a moment with any of them. The newbies mainly come off as unlikeable and we don’t get past the snarky veneer of two of them, while the other gets some half-hearted encouragement from Henley (Fisher), the only time the new and old seem to have a conversation that goes beyond small platitudes of admiration or barbed ‘old vs young’ friction. Now, real character development wasn’t ever in the question (this is a heist movie after all), but we barely get any character at all – gone is the witty banter, relationships or just the chance for these actors to play off each other – as the film stretches to give each of its septet a piece of dialogue. Having said that, the original actors are clearly having a blast, an enthusiasm that does translate to the screen and goes a decent way in carrying you through the story.
And there is still a fun time to be had – the set pieces are often genuinely exciting and creative, particularly those set in a house that seems to hold the history of magic and illusion. There are a few scattered laughs, but most of the jokes don’t really land and the more comedic characters and relationships are given so little screentime that their charismatic levity fails to materialise. The most laughs come from one particular character who appears later in the film, with their actor throwing themselves into it with full force. There are some unintentional laughs too; the biggest ones for me were an extremely on-the-nose needle drop (although that may have been done with a degree of self-awareness) and the ‘Leo pointing at the screen’ meme moment when the film’s title is used in dialogue.
The genuine definition of ‘turn your brain off’ entertainment, there is fun to be had and the film certainly doesn’t drag, but beyond a few visually exciting set pieces, the film itself will disappear from your memory like magic, only a few steps out of the cinema.
Really, the best part of the film is that it took the logical title that really should have been given to the second film, instead of lazily throwing a ‘2’ on the end.
