MYST Post #3: Now You See Me

During my rental of The Internship, I also rented Now You See Me along with it because they said that I would get $.50 discount; I’m a huge fan of discounts. This movie is about these four magicians who are brought together to perform three main acts as “the four horsemen.” These acts include robbing a bank (the Crédit Républicain), transferring money from Tressler’s bank account to the audience, and framing Thaddeus with money from stolen money from a safe. While all these are happening, the FBI and Interpol are trying to be one step ahead of them so that they can arrest them, but instead the four horsemen always seem to be one step ahead and always get away. In the end, we find out that the FBI agent turns out to be the fifth horsemen and he was the one who wrote the blueprints for everything that should have occurred; the four horsemen were just there to execute them. He needed them so that he could get revenge for his father, known as Lionel Strike. The movie as a whole was very intriguing and attention-grabbing. I felt like I was consumed in the movie the entire time and felt myself trying to figure out how each act was done along with the FBI and Interpol. I thought that the movie was executed very well and had many special effects that worked well with the movie.

The actors, in my opinion, are a bit more low key in this movie than ones in the past movies that I have reviewed, especially the ones that play the four main characters. Dave Franco is also known for being in the movie 21 Jump Street in which he plays a similar role. This movie and Now You See Me are more on the daring side of films. They are very action-packed and have dare-devil scenes in which he participates in like car chases and car crashes. Jesse Eisenberg is another actor that plays a similar role from past movies like The Social Network. In both of the movies, he plays kind of the nerdier guy that talks mostly about facts and in a nervous kind of way (kind of fast). Isla Fisher plays a strong independent woman in this movie. She is the only woman of the four horsemen and has to make sure to hold the fort when others disagree. She is the sly and deceiving female that gets others to do what she wants. This is very different than other roles she has starred in like Confessions of a Shopaholic, Wedding Crashers, and The Great Gatsby. In those movies, she plays a very ditzy and annoying girl who does whatever she wants with her life. She is mostly obsessed with finding the “perfect guy.” As you can tell, the actors were mainly chosen for this movie because it matches their personality and appearance, but as for Isla Fisher, it allowed her to see how talented she really is on how she can play such different roles.

Out of the three movies that I have reviewed on this blog, I would say that Now You See Me has the best cinematography. This movie had the best mixture of lighting, shots, and angles throughout the movie. The entire used mostly dark lighting because it is essentially a movie about magic and how secretive each of their acts for the show is. The movie also used the stereotypical bright lighting for any bank heists. As for angles, Louis Leterrier, the director, used not only direct angles, but many high and low angle shots to show inferiority and superiority. This was specifically evident during the interrogation scenes which I'll talk about later. Throughout the movie, Leterrier used many different shots to get the actions across. One of this includes panning. This allows the audience to see everything that is occurring both in the surroundings and to the characters. An example of this was in the end when the are standing in the center of New York City in Times Square. It helps to make the audience member feel like they are there with them and can see everything they see. In addition, Leterrier used other shots to make the audience feel like they were there like with the car chase scene. There was the use of a shaky camera to go along with the car movements to make it seem like we were in the car with the FBI agent and Interpol woman chasing Dave Franco's character, Jack. Overall, the cinematography throughout the movie was fantastic, especially the many special effects used for the three shows that the four horsemen had.

The one scene I would like to pinpoint and and specifically talk about in this movie would be the interrogation scene towards the beginning. This was after the first act from the four horsemen in which they robbed a French bank. The four of them were taken into questioning in which there was this one part where the movie kept switching between the questioning of J. Daniel, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and Merritt, played by Woody Harrelson. This speedy flipping back and forth enabled the audience to see both conversations and how each was manipulating the minds of the FBI agent and Interpol woman. In the interrogation scenes, the use of low angle and high angle shots were strongly evident. Low angle was primarily used when it was showing the FBI agent to show that he was superior and had the power in his hands. On the other hand, high angle was usually used when it showed one of the horsemen to show how they were inferior at the time because they were "in trouble" and in questioning. There was also the use of medium shots and close-ups to show the expressions of the other when one of the horsemen would be talking. In addition, there were jump shots between the person talking and the others to see the facial expression and reactions to what was being said, especially when the suspects seem to be trying to confuse the FBI and Interpol so that they would be released. There were also many smaller shots that I noticed that helped to add suspense and reality to the movie such as including some behind the shoulder shots and a high angle as if looking right through the security cameras. The use of zoom was also evident in J. Daniel's interrogation when he switches the handcuffs to the FBI agent and asks the Interpol woman, Alma, if there was something wrong with her soda. The camera zooms into her hand shaking the soda and zooms right back out to when she pours it. This adds some detail as to what is going on for the audience. Last but not least, oblique angle was also incorporated at the end of J. Daniel's interrogation. This is used to show that there is something off about the current situation which fit perfectly with the scene where J. Daniel was grabbing the phone. Later on, we find out that he actually switched the phones and gave back a bugged one.

Louis Leterrier created a movie that I enjoyed very much. He spent a lot of time, or so it seems, to make the movie intriguing and his cinematography and special effects were out of this world. It might just be that I am biased, as I have always loved the concept of "magic," but I thought that this movie deserved 4.7/5 stars.