★★ (2 out of 4)
Here’s the problem with movies about magic: They’re movies, which means anything really is possible, thanks to special effects and editing. With the thrill of live performance off the table, there’s only story. That leaves “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” the third in the franchise, hoping to be the charm. It would take real magic or failing that, a combo of style, skill and forethought, to make that happen. Neither materializes.
The actors, at least, look mighty pleased to be back in the saddle after nine years as the Four Horsemen. Jesse Eisenberg again leads the way as J. Daniel Atlas, with his familiar partners in crime—hypnotist Merritt McKinney (a pork-pie-hat-wearing Woody Harrelson), sleight-of-hand trickster Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). Having just staged a concert so secret that fans needed a treasure map to find it (hint: it’s in Bushwick), the Horsemen are reunited and it feels so good.
Or does it? It turns out that maybe it wasn’t Atlas on that stage. Maybe it was an illusion cooked up by—presto-chango!— a young pretender to the magic throne named Bosco, played with welcome sass by Dominic Sessa from the Oscar nominated, Paul Giamatti holiday comedy “The Holdovers.” Along with his besties, Charlie (Justice Smith) and June (Ariana Greenblatt), Bosco intends to put a fresh face on magic.
Get your head around it—Eisenberg and company are now one step away from assisted living. Working from a needlessly complicated script by Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, new director Ruben Fleischer is clearly on an out-with-old tangent. But the joke’s on him, since the veterans steal every scene. Meanwhile, the newbies are stuck with those long, expository scenes where they must explain their hopes and dreams and cutting-edge magic. Yawn.
I left this movie feeling I’d been had. And not in a good way.
In case you were wondering, there is a plot. It involves the two teams, geezers versus whippersnappers, combining to steal a jumbo blood diamond. Enter the villain of the piece. She’s the dazzling, demented diamond heiress and Nazi fangirl Veronika Vanderberg and she’s acted to the hilt and beyond by the pricelessly funny Rosamund Pike in a South African accent that sounds like nothing human. AI couldn’t duplicate the sounds emerging from Pike’s beautiful mouth. Nothing could. My rating for this film would soar if only Pike had more scenes.
She doesn’t. This threequel has been made for one simple reason: easy money. The 2013 original (directed by Louis Leterrier) grossed $352 million worldwide, while the 2016 follow-up, directed by “Wicked” magic man John M Chu, took home $335 million. I swear while watching No. 3 that I saw originality disappear right before my very eyes.
But I digress. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is awash with boring moments that give you time to think of things that having nothing to do with the movie, though I did think how the computer-generated effects were cheesy enough to be served with crackers and if only the dialogue was as ingenious as the product placement. I left this movie feeling I’d been had. And not in a good way.