I’d won a couple of free tickets to Now You See Me, and was hoping to catch it early in its Australian distribution, but it wasn’t until this week that a friend and I made it to Hurstville Event Cinema to cash in the tickets.
I’d heard quite a few reviews of the film by now, of course, and so I wasn’t too surprised by the overall structure. I hadn’t heard the twist, though I had a reasonable sense of where the film was going.
It was an enjoyable enough ride (the director also made Transporter 2), and a sequel is in the works, but the main problem is the characters. They’re so unlikeable. It only took a few moments with each to realise that there was no reason to care about any of them, and that we were stuck wanting to understand the mystery, not to urge the characters to succeed.
Surely the movie would have been developed in such a way that some likeable characters could have been introduced? This means that a range of actors who would otherwise be quite watchable are just wasted.
If you can cope with watching a movie where you’re not invested in the success of the major characters, it’s worth a look. The visual spectacle is such that a big screen viewing is worthwhile, if you can still find it.