Now You See Me: Now You Don't

The Now You See Me franchise occupy an interesting space among heist movies: they are to the sub-genre what Avatar is to action fantasy, in that they are enjoyed by their fanbase, and successful enough to merit more installments, but once the movies end, they kind of disappear from pop culture's radar. NYSM doesn't have the resonance of Ocean's Eleven for some reason, even though both are fairly preposterous heists that depending on convenience and contrivance the way a comatose patient depends on intravenous feeding. I enjoyed the previous two NYSM movies, acknowledging them as silly popcorn movies despite having some unmistakable cracks that their coolness couldn't overcome. I hoped that, with the second improving on the first by being past introductions and having the Horsemen operate from the back foot, we'd see the third achieve in more greatness. Instead, those cracks become gulfs in this third installment. Mind you, this is a perfectly fine, enjoyable movie. You can watch this for two hours and not regret it, but you also won't think of it again in a day or two. It's a wire mannequin wearing some rather diaphanous robes. The other two movies, the flaws could be overlooked if not forgiven, but here, they're unavoidable. First is the cast, which has two problems in and of itself. There are too damned many people here. By the time the movie reaches its climax, there are eight Horsemen; the original four, the replacement from NYSM2, and three new whippersnappers (which is a tiresome plot point the movie will not stop beating into the ground). The original four and Lizzy Caplan have an established rapport, and they have more dynamic characters, which is admittedly the luxury of being established characters. But that's just the point; they're established. We know them. We don't know the three new ones, and the movie puts very little effort into giving them any depth beyond one being shy, one being arrogant, and one being ... a girl? Spunky? And it's those lack of dynamics that make them stand out against the other five; the returning cast members have interpersonal dynamics, rivalries, ways of picking at each other, affection, in-jokes, all of the hallmarks of real relationships that make an audience attach themselves. The three new characters are 1) young, 2) look up to the Horsemen, and 3) there is no third thing. There can be no third thing, or fourth or fifth or anything of substance, because there's eight damned protagonists. There's just not enough time to do introductions and arcs in a two hour movie for three new characters, plus set up what happened to the old ones, why they broke up, what's brought them together, the villain, and build to the climax. It somehow manages to be over-stuffed while having no core to speak of. Speaking of the villain, umm ... is Rosamund Pike aware she's in a movie and supposed to be acting? Asking for a friend, and that friend is me. She has an accent that seems to marry Nordic, French, English, German, South African, and Fabio's weird made-up generic European accent. She can put a different accent on every word in a sentence, and while that's technically impressive, it's also as distracting and detrimental as shining a laser pointer in a driver's eyes. I couldn't take her seriously. Not just because of her ambiguous, global accent, but because she just doesn't try to do anything here. She's supposed to be this descendant of Nazi war criminals that exploits an entire nation, murders family members, and launders money for international criminals, but Pike plays her like Great Value Miranda Priestly. I've felt more menace from the Thirsties in old Kool-Aid Man commercials. So, you can imagine this leaves the central rivalry at play here rather kneecapped. We're only told this person is the personification of evil. We never see it. And despite some manufactured tense moments (I was impressed the member of the team who got captured and held hostage wasn't one of the ladies) there's never a palpable sense of danger. There's no question of failure, only a question of how they succeed. That brings me to the last two problems, both having to do with writing. The first is how much exposition this movie uses. Heist movies often have exposition dumps to tell the audience how the cool thieves pulled off their shenanigans, but HYSM3 takes it to a new level. The kind of exposition dumping HYSM3 engages in almost requires county-issued permits and heavy equipment. If I were to guess, I'd say, at minimum, 35% of the movie's dialogue is exposition. For a movie where the central conceit is magic -- a field of entertainment that is wholly dependent on visuals and what is and isn't seen -- it is ironic that the movie has to tell us instead of show us what we need to know. But then there's the other problem of the movie's writing: the guillotining of the lore and world-building that the first two movies set up. Whatever The Eye is, forget it. Thaddeus' role in it? He's retired now, so who cares. Not that NYSM had Tolkein-levels of lore, but the first two movies seemed to be building to something, and this one chucks all that aside for getting the band back together in the most clumsy of ways, and a script that seems almost afraid to let any scene slow down and breath. NYSM3 isn't energetic, it's in a panic to rush to the next scene so you don't see the popped stitches and threadbare story beats. There's no attempt to build off the previous two movies, just a rush to assemble the pieces and get the party going. I stress again that this is not a bad movie. It is mindless, popcorn-munching fun, and when you're in the mood for it, that's good enough. I don't need every movie to contain a philosophical debate, and I don't need every movie to be perfect. But NYSM3 is a substantial step down from the previous two. None of these movies have been fantastic, but they had enough charm and coolness to cover up the worst of the flaws. NYSM3 is too frenetic, too busy, too verbose, and yet too void of substance to allow the charm to do the heavy lifting.