The belated third instalment of the Now You See Me series puts the ‘Z’ into ‘alakazam’ with a new and younger cast joining our established heroes. Like its predecessors it’s a flurry of action scenes, VFX-assisted tricks and witty banter from a wildly overqualified cast: it may vanish from the memory like a rabbit in a hat, but it’s fun in the moment.
The premise has Jesse Eisenberg’s J Daniel Atlas recruiting three young musicians to help him in a heist he’s been assigned by the shadowy magical do-gooders known as The Eye. The trio – played by The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa, Barbie’s Ariana Greenblatt and Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith – will be helping him steal a gigantic gem belonging to South African diamond mine heiress and money laundress Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike). It’s not a big reveal when the other original ‘Horsemen of Atlas’ magical super-group members – Dave Franco’s Jack, Isla Fisher’s Henley and Woody Harrelson’s Merrit – turn up to help.
Things move too quickly to allow much time to ponder logic or logistics
Their quest will take them to the Netherlands, France and Abu Dhabi, with a few stop-offs for bickering and card tricks along the way. There’s some of the same spectacle-inflation that drove the Fast & Furious franchise into a wall, but director Ruben Fleischer mostly keeps things moving too quickly to allow you much time to ponder logistics or logic. There are dazzling heists to plan and wheels-within-wheels to turn, which is the best reason to watch this series. After all, the true pleasure of seeing a magic trick is trying to figure out how they did that, and here the answer is almost always ‘VFX’. The clever heists offer more satisfaction – and some genuinely surprising twists.
It’s strikingly timely to have a film about Robin Hood-style thieves who target the super rich and redistribute their ill-gotten gains. If the first film was born from the 2008 financial crash, this one is rooted in the rolling perma-crisis of trillionaires and oligarchs – which is perhaps why the mostly millennial original cast gradually let the new Houdinis take centre stage. Although the quips aren’t always sharp enough and the sleight of hand a little lacking, it takes a hard heart not to cheer as a few young victims of a broken system carve out their own little bit of magic.
In cinemas worldwide Fri Nov 14.