NOW YOU SEE ME? More like NO, YOU SHOULDN’T!

Let’s Gene Shalit this thing:

Woody you believe a movie about magic could be so manufactured?

You don’t need Eisenberg of your head to see this twist coming!

I Caine believe it’s so terrible!

Franco, my dear, you won’t give a damn!

Now let’s John Bierly it:

How can a film about magic have zero sense of wonder for magic? All the tricks are done with hilariously bad CGI, which makes them not tricks. And where’s the showmanship? The four magicians (Isla Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, and Woody Harrelson) stand around on stage in heavily edited sequences more concerned with swooping camera angles than any sense of rhythm. Nothing here engages, but the cast works hard to overcome a script that does nothing but continually dig itself out of holes by pointing the camera at characters and having them say things that make the story what it needs to be at that particular moment.

Mark Ruffalo, Mélanie Laurent (“Au revoir, Shoshanna!”), Common (whom the movie forgets about for most of its running time until it needs him for a sight gag), and mighty oaks Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are all wasted on this; of the magicians, it’s Harrelson’s natural charm that allows him to win the movie despite how poorly his character is written.

There’s also some nonsense about an ancient Egyptian magic Robin Hood cult that’s hilarious.

This is the kind of movie that would work only if Nicolas Cage were in it.

As it stands, it’s an absolute waste that thinks it’s slick genius. The cast is way too good for this. Even Dave Franco.