It's hard to pull the wool over someone's eyes when you're constantly telling your audience how tricky you are. That's kind of the problem that Now You See Me faces.
Now You See Me sets up the "Four Horsemen", magicians of various expertise in a heist movie against the FBI and magic-debunkers. It has a pretty substantial cast (from Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Jesse Eisenberg to the always lovely Melanie Laurent and Michael Caine), looking and feeling almost like a Steven Soderbergh production. It's definitely a fun movie, but it doesn't have near the charm or clever hijinks of Ocean's Twelve.
Now You See Me does best in small segments, with the humorous tricks and sleight-of-handness from all the magicians. But there have been too many great magic/magician movies (ie Prestige, which also starred Michael Caine) for us to be especially wowed or surprised. We also get very scarce character development so that all the characters are paper-thin, merely caricatures of their abilities.
The ending turns out to be either too far-fetched or too obvious (depending on how involved you get into the movie). Despite all this, I have to say that it was amusing. It's not terribly deep, but I don't think it's meant to be. As the movie says, magic isn't meant to deceive, but perhaps meant to draw the audience into forgetting everything except the wonder of it all. It's better not to worry about the wherefores and what's, but just take the movie for the momentary diversion it is.
The ending turns out to be either too far-fetched or too obvious (depending on how involved you get into the movie). Despite all this, I have to say that it was amusing. It's not terribly deep, but I don't think it's meant to be. As the movie says, magic isn't meant to deceive, but perhaps meant to draw the audience into forgetting everything except the wonder of it all. It's better not to worry about the wherefores and what's, but just take the movie for the momentary diversion it is.