Now You See Me: Now You Don't

A heist without sparkle, the Horsemen return for a trick no one asked to see

It would be hard to imagine, of all the franchises that studios have sought to prop up, that the one about magicians who pull off heists would be the one with best longevity. Yet, the Now You See Me films are now officially a decade-spanning trilogy, with the latest installment, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) arriving in theaters.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t utilizes the gap in time from the last Now You See Me 2 (2016), where nearly a decade has passed. The Four Horsemen magicians: J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) have soured on each other and scattered to the wind. Meanwhile a trio of upstart magicians: Bosco (Dominic Sessa), Charlie (Justice Smith), and June (Ariana Greenblatt), begin to use the Four Horsemen’s callsigns to pull their own small heists. However, both groups will be united by a mysterious figure to take down the blood diamond magnate Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), by stealing the largest diamond in the world.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is directed by Ruben Fleischer, who appears to be the go-to Hollywood directed to deliver serviceable if bland mid-budget films such as Venom (2018) and Uncharted (2022). The American director did deliver vivacity in his two Zombieland films, yet they’ve felt more like flashes in the pan than consistent trends. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is competently directed, if reeking from coming off the studio assembly line. The film is an amalgamation of lazy writing and fan-service, as if the Now You See Me films garnered the respect and fandom of a Marvel film. It results in the type of story structure and quips that feel assembled by ChatGPT, as stock lines and story reveals are delivered with the panache of boring fan-fiction.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is entirely made up of exposition dumps, stitched together with increasingly unconvincing acts of “magic.” The charm of the first film Now You See Me (2013), was that each trick pushed the limit of credibility just enough for audiences to buy their plausibility. However, with the sequel and this trilogy capstone, the “magic” has become increasingly ludicrous, leaning completely on CGI and editing tricks rather than consulting any real magicians.

The film’s plot is as generic a heist storyline as you can expect. Yet the film also intermittently takes itself way too seriously, bringing dramatic beats that ruptured the tongue-in-cheek fun of the first film, only to never reference later. There is only a slight breeze of fresh air with mocking of the ridiculous story beats by a returning character (which as unannounced in promotional materials I won’t spoil). Sadly, this is too little too late. Likewise, while Now You See Me: Now You Don’t purports itself to be an expansion of the magician group, seven protagonists proves too unwieldy for the writers. Franco’s Jack and Fisher’s Henley are completely forgotten about, meanwhile, Eisenberg and Harrelson are caricatures of their original characters, while the young magicians are eye-rolling Gen-Zers. Only Pike as the moustache twirling villain has some fun, employing a ridiculous accent and playing her role almost as a parody.

In the end, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is as formulaic and unoriginal a studio movie as you can imagine. It features a bloated cast, a barrage of implausible tricks, and a potentially AI generated plot. It’s not a terrible film, simply a bland and forgetful blob, one that starts fading from your memory the moment you get up from your seat.

5.0/10