Now You See Me (film)

Now You See Me
File:Now You See Me Poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Louis Leterrier
Produced by	Bobby Cohen Alex Kurtzman Roberto Orci
Screenplay by	Ed Solomon Boaz Yakin Edward Ricourt
Story by	Boaz Yakin Edward Ricourt
Starring	Jesse Eisenberg Mark Ruffalo Woody Harrelson Mélanie Laurent Isla Fisher Dave Franco Michael Caine Morgan Freeman
Music by	Brian Tyler
Cinematography	Mitchell Amundsen Larry Fong
Edited by	Robert Leighton Vincent Tabaillon
Production company	K/O Paper Products
Distributed by	Summit Entertainment
Release dates	May 21, 2013 (2013-05-21) (New York City) May 31, 2013 (2013-05-31) (United States)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$75 million
Box office	$351.7 million

Now You See Me is a 2013 American heist adventure film directed by Louis Leterrier. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.

Released on May 31, 2013, the film received mixed reviews from critics but became a box office success. A sequel, Now You See Me 2, is set for release on June 10, 2016.

Plot

Four amateur magicians, J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas (Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Franco), are each given a tarot card that lead them to the same empty New York City apartment, where they find information from an unknown benefactor.

A year later, the four perform their first major performance as the Four Horsemen in an elaborate Las Vegas show funded by insurance magnate, Arthur Tressler (Caine). Their final trick appears to transport one of the audience members to the vault of their bank, the Crédit Républicain in Paris, where stacks of new euro bills are stored. At the magicians' commands, the fans in the vault activate, drawing the bills into the vents and then showering the Las Vegas crowd with them. The euros are shown to be real, and the vault in Paris is found to be empty of its recent shipment of euros, leading FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo), and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Laurent), to be partnered and investigate the Horsemen. The two question the magicians but have no evidence to hold them. Dylan and Alma turn to Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), a former magician that now helps to explain the tricks behind other magic acts. Thaddeus demonstrates how they used a mock vault under the Las Vegas stage, and that the group must have stolen the money in Paris before it arrived at the bank, replacing it with flash paper that left no evidence.

Dylan, Alma, and Thaddeus follow the Horsemen to their next show in New Orleans, where their final trick appears to transfer millions of dollars from Tressler's private accounts to those in the audience, mostly made up of people that were denied insurance claims by Tressler's company in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Dylan and Alma try to capture the four but the magicians elude capture. Tressler hires Thaddeus to expose the Horsemen in revenge for the loss of his money. Alma investigates the Horsemen and determines they are connected to a group called the Eye, a small group of magicians that claim to have access to real magic. She finds out one of the Eye's members, Lionel Shrike, had previously been exposed by Thaddeus but died in a locked-safe escape trick he was performing to try to regain his standing. Alma suspects a fifth person is aiding the Horsemen.

Alma's research leads the FBI to the New York City apartment. When they raid it, the other three escape while Jack recovers numerous documents and then leads the authorities on a high-speed car chase. Jack loses control of his car, causing it to flip and catch fire. Dylan is unable to save Jack, but manages to recover the papers, pointing to the Horsemen's next planned crime, stealing millions of dollars in cash out of a large Elkhorn safe. Dylan, Alma, and Thaddeus find the safe has already been stolen, and when they track it down, its contents have been replaced with balloon animals. The Horsemen broadcast they will perform their final show that night at 5 Pointz, offering the public to attend. The FBI and police converge on the scene and amid the chaos search for the Horsemen. The remaining Horsemen appear to the crowd, giving their fans a farewell and a message about an ulterior purpose, and then run to jump off a roof; Dylan attempts to shoot them but Alma holds him back. The three jump, turning into a shower of money over the crowd. The money is counterfeit, but the audience's race to collect it prevents the authorities from tracking the real Horsemen.

After the show, Thaddeus walks to his car, only to find it full of the money stolen from the Elkhorn safe, and he is arrested. Dylan speaks to Thaddeus in jail, where Thaddeus slowly comes to realize that Alma's theory was correct, and Dylan was the fifth Horsemen. Dylan quietly walks away. Elsewhere, the Horsemen, including Jack who had faked his death, meet at the carousel in Central Park, and use their tarot cards to turn it on. Dylan arrives and welcomes the four to the Eye.

Later, at the Pont des Arts, Dylan meets with Alma and reveals he is Shrike's son. He brought the Horsemen together to get retribution for his father's death: the Crédit Républicain and Tressler's insurance company for failing to pay out for his father's wrongful death, and the Elkhorn Safe Company for a faulty safe that led to his father's death. Alma, who has come into a romantic relationship with Dylan, decides not to turn him in. She takes a lock and a key that Dylan produces, putting the lock on a chain fence and throwing the key into the Seine.

Cast

• Jesse Eisenberg as J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas (The Lover), an arrogant illusionist and street magician, and the publicly seen leader of the Four Horsemen.
• Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes, an FBI agent working to find and capture the Four Horsemen.

• Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney (The Hermit), a hypnotist, mentalist, and a self-proclaimed psychic. Originally a more famous hypnotist and mentalist in his youth, he was doing well until his brother, who was also his manager, stole all his money and ran off, leaving McKinney with a long hard trek back to his former glory, personally, professionally and financially, when he was left the 'Hermit' card. Middle-aged, McKinney is the oldest of the Four Horsemen.
• Isla Fisher as Henley Reeves (The High Priestess), an escapist and stage magician. She is also J. Daniel Atlas' former assistant and ex-lover.
• Dave Franco as Jack Wilder (Death), a sleight of hand illusionist, street magician, and a talented impressionist of other people's voices. Additionally, he is a pickpocket, and is able to pick locks. In his early twenties, Wilder is also the youngest of the Four Horsemen, so he looks up to the others (particularly Atlas), and is always more nervous than the rest of them.
• Mélanie Laurent as Alma Dray, a French Interpol agent who is partnered up with Dylan Rhodes to investigate the Four Horsemen.
• Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley, an ex-magician who, for thirty years, has made money by revealing the secrets behind other magicians' tricks.
• Michael Caine as Arthur Tressler, an insurance magnate and the Four Horsemen's sponsor.
• David Warshofsky as Cowan.
• Michael Kelly as Agent Fuller, an FBI agent who serves as Rhodes' sidekick.
• Common as Agent Evans, Rhodes's supervisor at the FBI.
• José Garcia as Étienne Forcier, the account holder at the Crédit Républicain de Paris.
• Caitriona Balfe as Jasmine Tressler, Arthur Tressler's young wife.
• Elias Koteas (uncredited) as Lionel Shrike, a magician who drowned while performing a trick thirty years earlier.

Production

Filming

On-set incident

During filming of the scene where Henley Reeves tries to escape from a tank of water and piranhas, Isla Fisher came close to drowning. Fisher had become stuck and tried to alert the crew by banging on the window she was facing, but the cast and crew did not think anything of it because that was what the character was supposed to be doing. She was able to untangle the chain and get out of the tank safely.

Music

Now You See Me (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Brian Tyler
Released	May 28, 2013
Recorded	2013
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	51:21
Label	Glassnote
Producer	Brian Tyler
Brian Tyler chronology
Iron Man 3 (2013)Iron Man 32013 Now You See Me (2013) Standing Up (2013)Standing Up2013

The official soundtrack was composed by Brian Tyler, and was released on May 28, 2013, for physical purchase and digital download.

No.	Title	Music	Length
1.	"Now You See Me"	Brian Tyler	5:26
2.	"The Four Horsemen"	Brian Tyler	3:34
3.	"Now You See Me (Reprise)"	Brian Tyler	1:49
4.	"Sun" (Jesse Marco Remix)	Two Door Cinema Club	4:45
5.	"Now You Don't"	Brian Tyler	4:21
6.	"Entertainment"	Phoenix	3:38
7.	"Sleight of the Mind"	Brian Tyler	4:45
8.	"Now You See Me" (Robert DeLong Remix)	Brian Tyler	3:40
9.	"Welcome to the Eye"	Brian Tyler	5:49
10.	"Codec"	Zedd	6:01
11.	"Cineramascope" (featuring Trombone Shorty and Corey Henry)	Galactic	3:14
12.	"Now You See Me" (Spellbound Remix)	Brian Tyler	4:19
Total length:			51:21

Release

Critical reception

Now You See Me received mixed reviews from critics. The film's most common criticism is that various plot points were insufficiently resolved at the film's conclusion, leaving some questions unanswered or answered unclearly (although it has been suggested that this was intentional, leaving room for a sequel). Based on 149 reviews from film critics, Rotten Tomatoes rated the film 49%, with the site's consensus saying "Now You See Me's thinly sketched characters and scattered plot rely on sleight of hand from the director to distract audiences." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 50 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews", based on reviews from 35 mainstream critics.

Peter Hammond from Movieline wrote, "Pure summer movie magic—literally. More fun than Ocean's 11, 12, and 13 combined. You won't believe your eyes—and that's the point."

Audience polls conducted by CinemaScore give the film a rating of an A–.

Box office

Despite mixed reviews, Now You See Me had a successful box office run, placing second behind Fast & Furious 6 and taking $29,350,389 on its opening weekend from 2,925 theaters. By the end of June, it had grossed double its production budget. The film stayed in the top 10 of the North American box office for six weeks after release. The film earned $117,723,989 at the North American domestic box office and $234,000,000 internationally, totaling $351,723,989 worldwide against a $75 million budget.

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result
2014	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Thriller Movie		Won
	Empire Awards	Best Thriller		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Thriller Film		Nominated
		Best Music	Brian Tyler	Nominated

Home media

Now You See Me was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 3, 2013. The Blu-ray release contains an extended version of the film, with ten additional minutes, bringing the film to a 125-minute runtime. It also contains two featurettes: a behind-the-scenes and a "History of Magic", plus 30 minutes of deleted scenes.

Sequels

Main article: Now You See Me 2

On July 3, 2013, after the box office success of the film, Lionsgate's CEO Jon Feltheimer officially confirmed that there would be a sequel to the film with production beginning in 2014 for an unspecified release date. Louis Leterrier stated that he would return to direct the sequel. However, in September 2014, it was confirmed that Jon M. Chu would replace Leterrier as director. Eisenberg, Ruffalo, Harrelson, Franco, Caine and Freeman are set to reprise their roles for the sequel. Fisher was unable to reprise her role and was replaced by Lizzy Caplan. It is set to be released on June 10, 2016, and will be titled Now You See Me: The Second Act. On October 2, 2014, Michael Caine said in an interview that Daniel Radcliffe would be playing his son in the film and that shooting was expected to begin that December in London. Filming began in late November. On May 22, 2015, Lionsgate revealed the details about the development of the sequel, when CEO Jon Feltheimer announced that they had "already begun early planning for Now You See Me 3."

External links

• Official website
• Now You See Me at IMDb
• Now You See Me at AllMovie
• Now You See Me at Box Office Mojo
• Now You See Me at Rotten Tomatoes
• Now You See Me at Metacritic