Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Theater Interruption (Now You See Me)

Now You See Me (2013)

Director: Louis Leterrier
Writers: Ed Solomon (screenplay), Boaz Yakin (screenplay), and Edward Ricourt (screenplay)
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson
Starts off promisingly enough with the introduction of the group of tricksters soon to be known as the "Four Horsemen" embarking on the intriguing plot of using magic as a cover for committing actual crimes. The magicians are fun to watch in action, with the highlight being the antagonistic relationship between Woody Harrelson's conniving mentalist and Jesse Eisenberg's arrogant street magician. However, the script violates some of the cardinal rules of storytelling by keeping its most interesting characters (the Horsemen) off screen most of the time and leaning less on true misdirection in favor of lying to the audience. This results in weak character development and manages to sap a lot of fun out of the mystery and reveal. Competently made otherwise, it is a shame that such a great cast and premise were wasted on such a sloppy script.

Score: 4 / 10

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