Now You See Me (2013)

The entire movie is about pulling wool over your eyes—as clever as you might be, you'll never figure out what's happening. So you just have to rush along for the ride. And quite a ride it is, filled with legerdemain and fireworks, sleights of hand and feats of prowess. People disappear and people get out of and into handcuffs with one frame of the movie camera. You want to look one way but the camera looks the other and wham, another surprise.

Yes, it's the movie the wins, without quite succeeding as a movie. It's like someone winning at a game by cheating. Impressive—not! And yet it seemed like fun for awhile.

There is quite the starry cast here, though two of the biggest stars have only a few minutes (literally) of screen time, sprinkled throughout the film. Michael Caine is shown as the money man behind the hiring of the four magicians in their sudden rise to the top. And Morgan Freeman is shown as the hunter of magic charlatans. (And no, there is no connection to Batman here.)

The four magicians are kind of a Dream Team pulled together in the first twenty minutes of the movie, and at first you think you'll see more of their individual acts, which are kind of fun. And different. One is a shyster on the streets, another a kind of trickster mind-reader hypnotist (played beautifully by Woody Harrelson), another a showy big production woman, and the fourth a wizard with cards. After they get together, however, it becomes a version of "Oceans Eleven" with magic thrown in. The big sham even starts in Las Vegas.

If all you want is pizazz, this movie is for you. It's nothing but! And it's quite well made technically and very fast paced. But if you want to get in on the tricks and be not only surprised but also held in suspense, there are too many easy twists and tricks of cinema illusionism at work. In fact, a key problem with magic in the movies is that you can't quite believe it because you can't trust the camera-work and editing. And there are certainly many tricks here that are only possible by splicing one piece of film to another—you know that seeing it on screen, and just have to say, "It's a movie, it's okay."

One final element is the convincing, hard-boiled detective, played by Mark Ruffalo. He seems to be the dependable thread a viewer can cling do amidst all the swirling and disarray. A necessary element. Never mind his Interpol sidekick from France, which is meant to add a love story to the whole brew. This movie isn't a mess. It's just a shame because it is so close to having the stuff of a great (entertaining) movie. Even so, though, it's quite entertaining. Quite.