Movie Review: ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’

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Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is a fun action globetrotting heist movie with visually spectacular magic and enough comedy and twists to keep the audience entertained. Most of your favorite, and maybe not-so-favorite, Robin Hood inspired criminal magicians are back, reunited, and joined by a few newcomers to take down a criminal businesswoman in the third film in the Now You See Me franchise (with a fourth apparently on the way). This installment of the series works well enough as a stand-alone film, but it most definitely is better if you have seen (and remember) the first two.

The film opens with the original four Horsemen reuniting after about a decade for an underground performance. But, spoilers if you haven’t seen the trailers, it is not really them but rather a new trio of magicians, Bosco (Dominic Sessa; The Holdovers), Charlie (Justice Smith; Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park 5 & 6, D&D Honor Among Thieves), and June (Ariana Greenblatt; A Bad Moms Christmas, Avengers: Infinity War, Barbie, Dancing With the Stars: Juniors), using their likeness to accomplish similar goals of robbing from the rich who use unethical/illegal methods to become wealthy.

Their stunt works but catches the attention of one of the real Horsemen, J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg who has been in so many projects that his filmography has a separate Wikipedia page), who needs their help with a heist mission that he has been given by “The Eye”. We get some fun scenes with Atlas and his new team pulling off the heist before being reunited with the other Horsemen, including Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher; Scooby-Doo, Wedding Crashers, Dog Man) who sat out the last movie due to a pregnancy.

The previous two paragraphs were largely covered by the marketing and trailers. It amazed me learning what they were able to keep secret, and I will not be revealing any non-marketing spoilers here. Suffice it to say, there were quite a few surprises.
The magic performed in the movie was largely awe-inspiring. Some of the stunts visually seemed more like camera/editing tricks rather than “real” magic, but they were still fun to watch. I was surprised by some of the twists and plot developments, though they might be easy to see if you are paying close attention to everything. It was great to see the returning cast and characters and the new cast and characters blended in perfectly. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and would highly recommend it, especially for fans of the first two movies.