Friday 11 July 2014

Film Review: Now You See Me

Brief review: I did, and I wouldn't again.

Longer review: A smug, ludicrous film full of the sort of overcomplicated tricks that you could never pull off. OK, you can pull them off in a magic arena where you control everything, but out in the real world? And repeatedly? Like a team that somehow, mysteriously robs a bank and is going to do it again is going to be able to go anywhere without a police surveillance team trailing their every move.

Ocean's Eleven did this, but it only had one caper, and it was done with so much more style and wit than this. And the whole point was that it had 11 people, each of whom was a specialist in a particular field to make their caper work. And George Clooney and Brad Pitt are likeable in a way that Jesse Eisenberg isn't (this helped The Social Network to work).

2 comments:

Rich Tee said...

Same here. I kept wondering when the explanation of how it was done would arrive but it never came. The secret of Ocean's Eleven and The Prestige is that they do reveal how it was done and make it plausible.

Judging by the hundreds of people who think it is a great film on Amazon they did manage to pull off a great confidence trick though.

Tim Almond said...

Rich Tee,

They did explain how it was done. But the trick to a good magic trick is that all the facts are there and that you *can* dismantle it. Having "oh, and he hypnotised someone" is a massive cop-out.