Friday 5 July 2013

Now You see me review

When a star cast like Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo and Morgan Freeman all share the same screen I would be a little foolish to say no to give it a watch.

A complete 115 min adventure packed game of cat and mouse that involves nail-biting turn of events for every 20 minutes keeps you gripping on the edge of your seat. The whole movie revolves around the four illusionists as lead calling themselves the four horsemen who use the element of surprise to keep their audience curious throughout their performance, both on and off screen. The very fact of running a bank heist each time the horsemen perform their illusions is pretty innovative and creates a fast paced ambience and keeps the audience inquisitive. Though the illusions are practically unbelievable, it is well scripted as everything is eventually explained.

It is well taken by Louis Leterrier(Director) who ensured not to reveal the timeline of when these heists or illusions happen as for the technology used to make happen such things could be questionable as few of  these events aren’t in any way possible in the present era. Not just the magic is justified but scenes including card throwing or usage of them as weapons are also practically proven possible in the real world by artists like Ricky Jay, Rick smith Jr. who have written practical theories for such possibilities. Although the character Jack played by Dave Franco, learned the art very precisely and performed the actions in a real appealing manner. The plot contains pretty impressive bank heist plan and lots of other twists and turns that I swear there isn’t a dull moment throughout the film. Let alone the audiences guessing abilities, the series of turn of events is so ironical that each scene hits you with a major shock factor.

Now when it comes to actor-character synchronization I believe the role of Thaddeus Bradley played by Morgan Freeman does not suit a perfect ten for the academy award winner. Everybody else except for Freeman suited perfect for their respective roles as of Freeman’s role was way below compared to his best performance. To choose as the best I would say Mark Ruffalo did a splendid performance being the smart, non-conventional cop sequentially uncovering the events doing perfect justice to his role, although there is a major surprise that can wait till you reach the climax.

Films like Prestige which stand as milestone in films based on magic that set the bar very high for other magic based films to reach, until “Now you see me” hit screens which matched almost equally making it on par with it. Moreover this even has a faster pace that remained a drawback in Prestige making it parallel milestone in all levels possible.

The plot sums up to the organization called “The Eye” which is partly left unexplained keeping the major audience expecting a sequel to this feature film. I would suggest and recommend it is a must watch for magic fans of ages 12+ keeping in mind the mild violence and mature language as it would keep them mesmerized in cinematic illusions. Lastly the quote “The closer you look the less you see” by the lead character played by Jesse Eisenberg is pretty apt keeping in mind the various categories of magic that has been performed.