Will you like Now You See Me: Now You Don’t? That depends, how cool are you with movies that endlessly explain themselves? If you want a movie that you don’t have to actually pay attention to while you’re watching it, critics seem to argue that Now You 3 Me is the threequel for you. Reviews for the movie note how stupid the entire franchise is, and how completely not-paradigm-shifting this third installment is in that regard. It is young, dumb, and full of magic tricks. And absurd explanations for said magic tricks.
Critics have never been into the Now You See Me franchise, but that hasn’t stopped audiences. Both NYSM 1 and NYSM 2 crossed the $300 million mark. And NYSM:NYD (a titled that, when acronymed, looks like a spinoff for Adult Swim faux-procedural NTSF:SD:SUV::) is tracking along similar lines, with a projected opening of $20 million. So if you too want to clap at the shiny lights and not really worry about things like “plot” or “the rules of physics,” Now You See Me: Now You Don’t might be the movie for you.
“In the Now You See Me movies, the so-called explanations for the big tricks are even more ridiculous than the tricks themselves; they’re not built on the characters’ skill or determination or cleverness, but on narrative convenience and screenwriter contrivance. These films are anti-magic: They quash the wonder of both a perfectly executed trick and its oh wow reveal. (This also makes them bad heist movies, by the way.)” — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t could use a Soderbergh-like touch behind the camera, someone with a flair for pulling off scams so sly and presentationally appealing that their absurdities may as well be actual magic. Instead, it has director Ruben Fleischer, an Eisenberg pal from two Zombielands who also made the weightless smashes Venom and Uncharted. In other words, someone about as good as his material allows. As in the previous Now You See Mes, the film-makers (including a small army of credited screenwriters) prefer nudges and excited backslapping to sly winks. This means that the mechanics of the broader heists are ultimately explained, however unconvincingly, while smaller tricks that are supposed to testify to the Four/Eight/However Many Horsemen’s more specific skill sets might as well emanate from the Fantastic Four.” — Jesse Hassenger, The Guardian
“One of the things that’s slightly cheesy about the Now You See Me movies, in a highly likable way, is that you can practically hear the pitch meeting they came out of in which someone said, ‘Let’s cross The Prestige with the Ocean’s films and a dash of Magic: Impossible!” But the pleasurable thing about the NYSM movies is that you can never totally pin down where they’re going. They always pull the ground out from under the rug out from under the audience. And while it may be true that a good magician never reveals his tricks, the Now You See Me movies always reveal their tricks, in a way that only makes them seem trickier.” — Owen Gieberman, Variety
“Have you ever watched a movie and thought, Hmm, it would be nice if they explained every inch of this plot so that my brain could spend two hours slowly turning off like a printer being submerged in mud? Well, that’s what Now You See Me is for, a movie composed entirely of explicable distractions, ones that’ll never upset you or alarm you or even, truly, surprise you. It simply: Is.” — Scaachi Koul, Slate
