Now You See Me (2013)

Now You See Me (2013) Trailer

Magic.

Always like magic stories, such as The Prestige, but not so much for Harry Potter's kind of magic.

I think the trailer of the movie is so successful attracting people to watch it in the cinema. I like the fast paced and information-loaded opening. The exposure of the story is very good. It keeps telling you the theme of the story, "the more you look, the less you see". (This parallels the first line in The Prestige, "Are you watching closely?")  It also defines what magic is, explains how important distraction is. (As in The Prestige, the three stages are the pledge, the turn and the prestige.)

After watching the trailer, I guessed how the Four Horsemen "robbed the bank". As I watched a lot of tv shows on exposing the secrets of magic, I have a brief idea of how they do it. I guessed that the robbery actually happened before the show, and the show is just a distraction. But the details are always the most difficult to sought out, that's why one big magic trick worths so much money.

The story and characters are well-developed as more and more characters are introduced which helps building the layers of mystery. A lot of CGI in post-production, including some magic tricks, also the typical car chase scene...all these elements are typical commercial Hollywood best-sellers tricks.

There are twists within a twist. Some plots are rather baffling. How would they betray their billionaire sponsor? The most disappointing part of the story is the ending. How could the "I'm-tracking-myself" stupid agent turns out to be the mastermind who is always three steps ahead? And there's too much coincidence in the story. How could Jack faked his death? The timing of blocking the cars behind is too good to be true. And why would the Four Horsemen take the risk of going to jail just to get the entry ticket to the Eye, which is an unknown secret organization? The writers seems to have over-used the coincidence quota.