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So this third Now You See Me movie is exactly what happens when a studio decides to milk a franchise way past its expiration date and look I get it they made decent money with the first two so why not go for round three right, well that doesnt work that easy specially when the its just the same joke and it becomes old really fast. This one has Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher all coming back to do their magic Robin Hood thing but now they got some younger blood mixed in there with Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt who are supposed to be the next generation taking over. The whole setup is still the same tired concept of magicians pulling off heists using illusions to steal from rich assholes and then give the money back to regular people, this time is the way they execute it here is so damn preachy that you want to roll your eyes every five seconds. They are going after this diamond company that launders money for arms dealers and criminals, basically every villain that Hollywood thinks is safe to attack without getting any backlash and it all feels so simplistic like they are trying to teach a lesson instead of just entertaining you for two hours. Rosamund Pike shows up as the bad guy Veronika Vanderberg whose family has been using their diamond business to launder money for criminals because of course they do, and while Pike goes full ham trying to make her character fun to watch even she cannot save this thing from being a total bore. The biggest issue is how dated everything feels, like they wrote this script five years ago and just now got around to filming it, all the social commentary about wealth redistribution and taking down evil corporations feels tired and overdone at this point.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4712810/
- Platform: AppleTV+
Rottentomatoes Rating
The new crew they bring in is probably the worst part of the whole movie because nobody asked for a younger version of these characters and they are all just generic copies of what came before. Justice Smith plays Charlie who is this behind the scenes mastermind type who spends most of the movie looking stressed and whining about how dangerous everything is, Ariana Greenblatt plays June who does parkour for absolutely no reason other than to show off that she can do flips and Dominic Sessa plays Bosco who is this arrogant pick pocket that never becomes likeable no matter how hard the movie tries. The movie really try hard for you to care about this passing the torch moment where the old magicians teach the young ones how to be better criminals but the problem is we never really cared about the original four in the first place so why would we care about their replacements, in my opinion this has always been a very generic movie because magic wont change the fact that this feels like a cheap version of Oceans 11. There is this forced tension between the two generations where Jesse Eisenbergs character Atlas is being all egotistical about being the best and then the new trio challenges him saying the old ways do not work anymore and its just eye rolling melodrama that adds nothing to the story except wasted screen time. The worst part is that Morgan Freeman ends up dying in the stupidest way possible, he gets shot while trying to escape from this mansion in France and then nobody even mourns him properly at the end which feels disrespectful to both the character and Freeman himself who deserved way better than this lazy sendoff.
The villain story with Rosamund Pike is so over complicated and boring that I could barely follow what was happening half the time and I do not think that was intentional either, after the first 20min of the movie I turn on my second screen and was side watching the movie as when I dont care much about it. Veronika Vanderberg runs this money laundering operation for arms dealers using diamonds from her family company so naturally the magicians decide they need to take her down by stealing the Heart Diamond in some elaborate heist. The actual theft sequence is probably the only decent part of the whole movie where they pull off some clever switches but then everything falls apart because the whole thing turns out to be a setup by Charlie who faked being contacted by the Eye organization to get all the Horsemen involved in his personal revenge scheme. Turns out Charlie is actually a Vanderberg himself, his mom was Veronikas housekeeper and he was the result of an affair with her father and Veronika killed his mother by cutting the brakes on her car which makes this whole thing a family drama instead of an actual heist movie. The final showdown happens at some Formula One party in Abu Dhabi where they expose Veronika for her crimes, Charlie reveals he is alive after she thought he died as a kid, and the whole thing feels like a soap opera rather than an actual action sequence.
Mark Ruffalo shows up at the very end in a post credits scene revealing he was never actually in prison and was working for the Eye organization the whole time, then he welcomes the three new magicians into the group like nothing bad happened even though their plan got Morgan Freeman killed which like TF its fkn Freeman why he got that crappy character?. The movie wants this to be some big twist moment where you realize Dylan was orchestrating everything from behind the scenes but it just makes everyone look stupid because apparently nobody noticed he was not actually locked up this whole time, like how does that even work. The ending tries to set up a fourth movie by showing all of them standing together as the new expanded Horsemen including Lizzy Caplan who comes back as Lula May and Dave Francos character has some forced romance with her that does not work or feel earned in any way shape or form. Everything wraps up way too neatly with no real consequences for anyone except Morgan Freeman who is dead and forgotten about two scenes later, Veronika gets arrested and loses everything I guess, the magicians become even more famous and powerful than before, the whole message seems to be that if you have magic powers or whatever they call it you can do whatever you want and nobody will stop you which is pretty fucked up this already looks so so so F&F but I have to admin seems the audience love it on online rating platforms and I bet this movie is going to do well on streaming but that doesnt change its such a hollow empty ending that makes you wonder why you spent two hours watching this when nothing that happened actually mattered, like they could have cut an hour out and nothing would change because most of it is just filler and people standing around talking about how great they are at magic tricks.
The whole movie just feels like a waste of everyones time, everyone involved seems bored out of there minds and just collecting a paycheck rather than actually trying to make something worth watching. The magic tricks are not impressive at all because you know its all CGI and camera tricks doing the heavy lifting, theres no real magic happening just a bunch of green screen work that looks fake most of the time, the heist stuff is generic and you can see everything coming from a mile away, the new characters are super annoying and add absolutely nothing of value to this tired franchise, even the returning cast members seem like they would rather be doing literally anything else with there careers at this point. Jesse Eisenbergs character Atlas is somehow even more insufferable than he was in the first two movies which I did not think was possible, playing this egotistical narcissist who thinks he is smarter than everyone else and the movie never calls him out on his crap, he just keeps being an asshole and everyone treats him like he is some kind of genius leader when really he is just annoying. The movie tries so hard to be relevant with all its commentary about diamond companies and money laundering but it all comes across as surface level garbage that was clearly written by people who do not actually understand any of these topics beyond reading a headline on Twitter somewhere, its embarassing to watch. I would give this thing maybe a 6.5 out of 10 and that is me being generous because at least Rosamund Pike tried to have some fun with her role and went completly over the top which was entertaining for like five minutes, otherwise this would be way lower like a 4 out of 10 because there is just nothing here worth your time, just skip it entirely and go watch the first Ocean movie again or even the first Now You See Me if you really want magic heists because at least that one had some energy to it even if it was dumb, this third one is just tired and lazy and feels like it should have never been made in the first place.
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