Now You See Me (2013)

Who Doesn’t Love a Good Magic Trick?

As the day of my birth approaches, I decided that I should not be at work as I turned 30.  Well, not at one of my jobs at least.  I would spend my vacation from one job working on the one I actually enjoy: stuff-reviewing.  The first step would be to make my way to the theaters, with my friend Greg in tow.  There were a few movies that I wanted to see in theaters, but Greg had either already seen them or had no desire.  We agreed only on today’s movie.  This movie had piqued my interest when I saw trailers for it, but I had apprehensions about it.  It seemed like an interesting enough premise, but I worried at the movie’s ability to realize that interest.  We find out how well it did as I review Now You See Me, written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt, directed by Louis Leterrier, and starring Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Common, Michael J. Kelly, and Elias Koteas.

A few stray tarot cards bring together four magicians – Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – with a plan to accomplish three amazing feats for a mysterious benefactor.  They become “The Four Horsemen,” sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine).  For their first trick, they rob a bank in Paris and give all the money to the audience.  This attracts the attention of FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Vargas (Mélanie Laurent), who need to figure out how they did it and what they intend on doing next.  For that, they enlist the help of an ex-magician who makes a living debunking other magicians, Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman).

I enjoyed this movie.  It was not without its share of problems, but I still found the experience enjoyable.  I found the premise of the movie to be the most compelling part.  The idea of magicians using their abilities for “evil” instead of their usual motivation of “pussy” was very interesting to me, and I thought it was clever how they did it.  I especially liked when Jack Wilder fought the two FBI Agents using magic as a fighting style.  I wasn’t able to figure out their Las Vegas stunt until they revealed it to us.  Their New Orleans stunt was much more predictable and much less mystifying, especially with what they did with the word “Freeze” and how easy it would be to make someone’s money move from one account to another with a simple computer, but there were still some clever ideas in there.  I feel like the problem I had with the movie was that it practically dared the audience to figure it out and to be wary of misdirection, but overall wasn’t clever enough to make it happen.  When one of the characters tells Rhodes that someone might be a spy for the magicians, you can pretty much rest assured that it won’t be either the character that told him that or the character he was talking about.  That would be too easy.  But it doesn’t leave many options, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out.  And though you might not have known how they accomplished something, you can have an idea that something was accomplished, like the part in the story with a car crash.  I didn’t know how it was faked, but it’s a movie about magic.  Of course it was faked.  I would also say that the movie started off by getting me, because I totally picked the card that Jesse Eisenberg put on the side of the building, but there’s also a chance that this could’ve been manufactured with camera tricks.  I also felt like Woody Harrelson’s mentalism stuff was mainly included for exposition, because he delivered most of the character’s backstories using that stuff.

The cast of the movie was great, with no real complaints.  They got great people so I would expect nothing less.  Jesse Eisenberg plays nervous and self-conscious better than he plays a cocky douche, but he did very well.  Isla Fisher is hot, and I heard she almost drowned at one point in this movie, so props for the commitment as well.  Woody Harrelson was pretty entertaining all the way through, and he got to be the funny one in the group most of the time.  I’ve loved me some Mark Ruffalo ever since he was the Hulk, and I found myself worried for the magicians that they might get him too angry.  They might not enjoy that.  I was also very excited to see Mélanie Laurent since I haven’t seen her since I fell in love with her in Inglourious Basterds.  Long distance relationships are always so hard…  I also got to thinking that, with both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in this movie, how could they not have been able to get Christian Bale (and maybe even Hugh Jackman) to come in for a pivotal scene at the end of the movie where they just yell, “THE PRESTIGE!” and dance around in circles?  It would’ve made the movie for me.  But sometimes, I just want to watch the flash paper burn…

I thought the premise of Now You See Me was great, but there just wasn’t enough magic in the storytelling.  Their clever ideas also activated the parts of the brain that cause us to try to figure out how magic is accomplished, but the story wasn’t quite polished enough to hide their secrets from me.  But their ideas were clever enough to keep me interested, and it was presented well enough and included many great performances.  I’d say this movie is definitely worth a watch.  I don’t know that I’d say it was important enough that it need be seen immediately in theaters, but it also wouldn’t hurt.  Renting it would do fine as well.  Now You See Me gets “The more you think you see, the easier it’ll be to fool you” out of “You have what we like to call in the business, ‘nothing up your sleeve.’”

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Men in Black (1997)

We’re Not Hosting an Intergalactic Kegger Down Here

After watching Snow White and the Huntsman, I felt I had the time to catch a second movie, but we’ll get to that in a couple of days.  This movie was the third part in a trilogy, so it stands to reason that I would review the first two movies first.  I remember the other two movies as being very funny, really cool, and really imaginative.  But, as with so many movies, you never really know how well they’re going to hold up to the scrutiny of today.  We’ll find out in my review of Men in Black, written by Ed Solomon, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent D’Onofrio, Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, David Cross, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Mike Nussbaum, John Gries, Tim Blaney, and Richard Hamilton.

A member of a secret organization called the Men in Black named Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is left without a partner when his previous partner (Richard Hamilton) is proven to be too old to do the job anymore.  Meanwhile, James Darrell Edwards III (Will Smith), a NYPD officer chases down a strange man on foot that has two pairs of eyelids and can climb walls.  When he catches him, he tells him that the world is coming to an end and jumps off the roof.  Needless to say, his peers at the precinct don’t believe him, but K does.  After getting the information from him he needs, he uses a device that erases his mind called a neuralyzer, but having seen his potential, also gives him a card to come and potentially become a Men in Black agent.  Though one could say he did less than stellar on the tests, K talks the Agency leader, Zed (Rip Torn), into taking him on.  James Darrell Edwards III loses his identity and becomes Agent J.  Their first case together involves a large, cockroach-like creature wearing the skin of a farmer named Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) and looking for something called “The Galaxy”, which is apparently located on Earth.  Finding it would mean the destruction of the Earth, so the Men in Black must intervene.

Men in Black is a really fun and imaginative movie.  It was one of the most fun movies that I can presently remember from my high school days, and it completely holds up.  The writing is pretty basic science fiction fare with a few twists and turns so as to not be predictable and with enough comedy to set itself apart.  At its core, it’s just about the regular stuff of saving the world from destruction by an alien race, but it adds the fish out of water thing with J having to deal with all sorts of things that he was previously unaware of their existence.  Will Smith’s character adds the bulk of the comedy because of this fish out of water stuff.  One of my favorite comedy moments for Will Smith is when he’s in the shooting range to audition for the Men in Black and he shoots only the little girl cutout.  His explanation for why he chose to shoot her is fantastic.  They don’t do very much drama in this movie, and that’s what keeps it fun.  All of the drama stuff is because of K, who we quickly find out is pining over the woman he loved who he can’t keep in touch with because of his job.  That gets a satisfying wrap up in the end.  The part where they save the world from the aliens is almost secondary, but it’s still interesting.  The cockroach creature in the Edgar suit is intimidating in any one of its incarnations.  When it’s wearing the Edgar suit, its skin is hanging off its bones making it look pretty gross, but pretty cool as well.  There’s a bit of a mystery to this part of the story because they’re told the galaxy they’re looking for is on Orion’s Belt, and they need to figure out what that means, but the mystery doesn’t take that long.  The look to this movie holds up very well.  I really like their opening of watching a fly travel down a highway until it’s plastered across a windshield.  The aliens look very good, both in their animatronic forms and their computer generated forms.  It’s all very stylized and cool.  In fact, I figured from the look of it that Tim Burton had something to do with it, but I think it was just the Danny Elfman music that gives that feel to it.

The greater majority of the performances work very well in this movie.  Will Smith is always a delight to watch.  He’s very funny in this movie and even has a few minutes where he gets to be awesome.  Take, for instance, when he was facing off with the cockroach near the end of the movie and he tells the giant, sinister cockroach to ease up out of his face.  He pulls that stuff off just as well as he pulls off the comedy.  Tommy Lee Jones’ most impressive stuff in this movie is the emotional parts.  He doesn’t go over the top with it, but it’s clearly there.  The bulk of the comedy he’s involved with is as a straight man, and he does that fantastically.  Vincent D’Onofrio was a difficult one for me though.  He definitely played the Edgar suit version of himself in an intimidating way, but he also kind of hammed it up at times.

Men in Black was one of the most fun movies of my high school years, and it stands up to the memories I had of it.  At its core, it’s not the most brilliant or innovative story, but the comedy and the creative look it brings sets it apart from the basic sci-fi fare.  And all of the performances in the movie do well to help the movie accomplish the fun it sets its sights on, even though D’Onofrio may go a bit over the top at times.  Men in Black is a great movie that should be in any collection.  Tomorrow, we’ll find out about the sequel.  Men in Black gets “I make this look good” out of “You’ll get used to it … or you’ll have a psychotic episode.”

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