To fully enjoy “Now You See Me,” a new magical heist film starring Jessie Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, it’s best to leave your sense of disbelief at the door. Or at home. Better yet wrap it in cellophane, lock it in a box and hide it under the bed.
Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco play magicians collectively known as The Four Horsemen. Brought together by a mysterious benefactor, they make their debut in front of a sold out crowd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In front of an enthusiastic crowd they perform a wild illusion that seemingly transports an audience member to a bank vault in Paris. Soon three million Euro are sucked out of the vault, only to reign down on the crowd in the Vegas theatre. This and other spectacular, but illegal illusions attract the attention of not only a magic debunker (Morgan Freeman) but the FBI (lead by Mark Ruffalo) and a French Interpol agent named Alma Vargas (Mélanie Laurent).
“Some things are best left unexplained,” says Alma. Yeah, like who plotted this mess.
“Now You See Me” is the silliest movie of the year. It’s fun and mostly entertaining, but with its talk of secret societies, “bringing magic back to the people” and leaps of logic, to call it far fetched is an understatement akin to saying Houdini is kinda tricky.
Filled with likable actors giving flamboyant performances it speeds by in a blur of swirling cameras and “tricks” that are like David Copperfield on steroids… and CGI. For a movie about bringing magic back to the people, it’s more about bring computer generated trickery to the big screen.
There is a wizard battle that would make Harry Potter envious but by the time our magical Robin Hoods–they don’t keep any of the stolen money for themselves– end their run with the sentiment “Even if we spend the next twenty years in jail it was worth it,” you’ll be wanting to make a disappearing act of your own.
In Definitely, Maybe Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds plays Will Hayes, a divorcee with a young daughter (Abigail Breslin) and relationship woes of near epic proportions.
The movie begins with the eight-year-old wanting to know how her father met her mother. Will agrees to share the story, but changes the names and the places, creating a “romantic mystery” the little girl must unravel. For the next couple of hours Will unwinds a bedtime story of love lost and found complete with all the gossipy details. It’s an interesting framework for a romantic comedy, and, aside from the questionable practice of an adult sharing the details of his sexual history with a youngster, this romantic Rashômon works very well.
With Maya hanging off every word, and even making up flow charts to keep track of her father’s various involvements, Will works through his romantic life, starting with his college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), right up to his big city crushes, the sexy and free spirited Summer (Rachel Weisz) and the edgy April (Isla Fisher). There are ups and downs along the way—one woman tells him that they shouldn’t date because they’re like “Lennon and McCartney… Good while they lasted but afterwards they couldn’t even be friends”—and even though he tries to present a PG version of the story, he still occasionally gets down and dirty with the details.
The romantic escapades are woven in amongst a timely parallel story of Will’s involvement with the Clinton—Bill Clinton, that is—campaign in 1992.
In recent years the romantic comedy genre has suffered from a bad case of predictability. Most often you know how they going to end before they even start, so it is the journey, how the characters end up in a loving embrace at the end of the film that matters. Definitely, Maybe’s storytelling structure is a different take on the tried and true formula and while it does have a happy ending—it has to otherwise it would be a romantic tragedy!—the twist adds some life to an otherwise moribund genre. It’s a rom com for grown-ups; a little more realistic than most (although just a tad more realistic), with a welcome bit of edge.
Like all good romantic comedies Definitely, Maybe is set in New York, and has some genuine laughs, mostly bolstered by a charming cast led by Reynolds, whose chemistry with the women and Breslin seems real and unforced. His sense of timing is bang on, and his way with physical humor works here—a subtle sight gag that sees him, with his big hands, drinking from a tiny juice box drew laughs and awws from the audience I saw it with—and since he is in every scene, it’s ultimately his charisma that carries the movie.
Definitely, Maybe still has most of the predictable elements found in many movies of its genre, but is heartfelt and just different enough to earn a recommendation.
You have to wonder if a comedy about a young woman plagued by debt is really timely or seriously mistimed. With stories about debt and dollars leading almost every newscast these days it may be a risk to release a lighthearted movie about living beyond one’s means. Of course Confessions of a Shopaholic was shot last year before the bottom fell out of the economy, and in fact, re-shoots were done to change the end of the movie to reflect the current financial situation, but the question remains: Will audiences want to laugh with a movie about a compulsive shopper who seems pathologically unable to live on a budget?
Based on the popular Shopaholic novels by British author Sophie Kinsella, the movie centers on Rebecca Bloomwood (Wedding Crashers’ Isla Fisher) a 25 year old college grad who relocates to Manhattan to facilitate her shopping obsession—she gets an orgasmic look in her eye when she sees a sale sign and mannequins come to life to convince her to shop—and also break into New York competitive magazine market. With her credit cards being declined at Gucci, Prada—“They said I was a valued customer,” she weeps, “but now they send me hate mail.”—and other cathedrals of commerce she looks to find a way out of her debt by taking the most ironic of jobs—a financial advice columnist.
Confessions of a Shopaholic plays like a broad comedy, so broad in fact it makes Gilligan’s Island look like Molière. Isla Fisher is a gifted comic actress in the Lucille Ball vein and isn’t afraid to indulge in some good old fashioned slapstick or face pulling, but the tone of the movie is uneven. It zigzags between heartfelt and straight up goofy and those seismic shifts are enough to give the casual viewer whiplash.
The movie’s take on the economics of being a shopaholic are equally confusing. Of course Rebecca learns her lesson about debt and the dangers of being financially over extended, a timely message if there ever was one, but it’s all a bit too easy. In the beginning she’s a mini-Madoff, spending like a drunken sailor, but instead of landing in jail she lands a great job, a hunky boyfriend and an entree into the life she always dreamed about. It’s hardly a cautionary tale, although the film inadvertently provides a bit of a history lesson. Shot less than a year ago it talks of unparalleled growth in business. In this contemporary tale the economy is still good. What a difference a few months and a couple of bankrupt banks can make.
Not that any of this matters. I’m not the target market for Confessions of a Shopalholic. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after reviewing Sex and the City and being told to “shut my damn manhole” (as one kind viewer suggested) but professional obligation obliges me to continue.
The movie will find an audience, but lacks the lifestyle porn—the money shots of the shoes, the apartments and clothes—that made Sex and the City repeat worthy. Only one scene drew the kind of “oohs” and “aws” from the audience I saw it with, which was 95% women, as opposed to 9 or 10 in SATC, but again that probably won’t matter because as the PMC (preferred movie companion) said after the film was over, “I liked it because it was so sparkly and pink.”
In just 12 minutes The Great Train Robbery tells the tale of a group of bandits who hold up a train and rob the passengers.
Made by Edwin Porter in 1903 it’s been placed on the United States National Film Registry for its innovative use of composite editing, camera movement and on-location shooting.
It was one of the first narrative movies and it introduced moviegoers to the heist movie, a tradition that continues to this day.
This weekend Now You See Me presents an elaborate crime story of a team of magicians — led by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Isla Fisher — who abracadabra their way into bank vaults.
They are Robin Hood-style crooks, stealing money and giving it back to their audiences.
The “steal from the rich to give to the poor” is a common theme in heist movies. Recently Tower Heist saw a rag tag group clean out a Bernie Madoff type in order to refund money to the people he swindled.
The Maiden Heist stars Christopher Walken as a museum security guard infatuated with the painting that gives the movie its name.
When it is announced that the artwork has been sold to a Danish gallery he’s distraught — “Do you know how far away Copenhagen is?”— and ropes Morgan Freeman and William H. Macy into stealing the painting and two others so they can enjoy them together. Not exactly Robin Hood — they’re stealing from the rich to give to themselves — but their motives are artistically pure.
Not so pure are the reasons behind the heist in The Good, the Bad, the Weird — an Asian take on the similarly named Sergio Leone spaghetti western.
It’s a chaotic two-hour chase for a treasure map — and then the treasure — in 1930s wartime Manchuria between a bounty hunter (the Good, played by Jung Woo-sung), a leader of evil bandits (the Bad, Lee Byung-hun) and a train robber (the Weird, Song Kang-ho).
Director Ji-woon Kim calls this a “kimchee western,” after the national dish of Korea because the plot and film, like the people of Korea, he says, are spicy and vibrant.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird has a few laughs but A Fish Called Wanda’s story of armed robbery is a full-on comedy crime caper.
It has a 96 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was named one of the greatest British films of all time by Total Film.
To fully enjoy “Now You See Me,” a new magical heist film starring Jessie Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, it’s best to leave your sense of disbelief at the door. Or at home. Better yet wrap it in cellophane, lock it in a box and hide it under the bed.
