Now You See Me: Now You Don't

This weekend, Now You See Me: Now You Don't, the third film in the franchise, was released in theaters. The Four Horsemen return to expose a diamond mogul and her criminal enterprises. I enjoyed the previous two films and had anticipated this one since its announcement ten years ago.

In general, I had a lot of fun with this movie. The big draw of this movie is the fun of seeing these characters, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco, together again after almost 10 years. They were just as great in this film as they were in the previous ones. I liked how they brought something new to this movie by teaming up with a new generation of magicians. It was fun to see the two groups try to one-up each other while also learning from each other. I thought Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa, and Justice Smith were great additions to the franchise and added a new flair to the story. As with the other two films, this movie features some fun sequences, such as the diamond heist and the Eye estate fight that features a bunch of magical trick rooms. Overall, this movie just brings a really fun atmosphere and oozes charm and charisma at every turn. All of the characters are extremely likable, and the story is just a lot of fun from beginning to end.

While I did have a lot of fun with this film, I will admit that there were some drawbacks to it. I felt that this film had the least amount of magic aspects to it. Where the other two films had magic throughout, this one only had a few sequences. That made the movie lose a bit of its essence for me. It gradually turned into a spy action movie, which is pretty far from the cat-and-mouse game with the FBI that the first film was. I also felt that a lot of the characters were a bit underutilized. There were 8 different main magicians, and I felt none of them really got enough time to shine. There were a few little moments, but I felt that things were spread a bit too thin. I also thought that the Morgan Freeman character didn't really have any reason to be in the movie other than just for the sake of bringing Thaddeus Bradly back one more time. The story and big reveal at the end also require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, and you just have to accept that certain things happen so that the ending can work, not because they make sense.

In the end, this movie was a lot of fun, and it was great to see these characters again. While I didn't find the movie disappointing, I don't think all of the different aspects totally blended together like the movie was intending. I think it needed to be a little longer to balance all of the different characters that it had.

Score: 7/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out