I Literally Never Saw You
(‘Now You See Me’ Review)

– FIRST IMPRESSION RATING.

Now, I tweeted about this a few days back saying that this film seemed to be made as a face-off between Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, which isn’t a negative comment as such. It really was quite an intense battle between some big names, and yet it wasn’t something heavy to watch, which I liked.

Upon exiting the cinema to my half-hour walk home, my friend commented on its likeness in intellect to Inception. She said it was better than Inception, but I thought it was a little too bold of a statement. She was right on one account though, it wanted to be clever like Inception, and it was similar in that way. My friend enjoyed this film more, she said, because it didn’t require as much concentration. Judge for yourself whether it’s something you’d prefer or not.

My main hat-off to the film was that it is clever. Unlike some film plots, it remembers what happened in the scenes before, and so sticks together much more nicely. Of course with any magic trick, or film about magic tricks, your primary motive whilst watching is to be able to figure out how it happened, so all through the cinema, you’re screwing your eyeballs up at different moments as if that will help you work it all out. I thought it impressive how throughout the story, they gave you hints, tips and clues to the different riddles entwined in it, and even when you think you’ve got it, you haven’t. It made you part of the story. And I can’t knock that.

I would say, however, that the ending seemed blindingly unrealistic. And that’s my serious grievance with the whole thing. It might be that my ego was shattered when I didn’t solve the story, but somehow I don’t think that’s it, but I thought that they almost picked the ending from several ideas in a hat and ran with it because it was obscure. A little too obscure for my taste, though, but it may just be me. It was almost as if, during all these attempts to solve the mystery of the magic tricks, it would be comforting to have come, at least, close to the real solution.

It was a film that had to heavily rely on its plot, which is completely natural, because the cinematography was good, but nothing extraordinary, and the acting roles – meaning the range of acting in the characters – were decent, but not outstanding. I think the plot was something special; it could have been a very loose, boring sequence of magic tricks, but in fact there was something very extravagant and exciting about it. I think it’s a shame I didn’t enjoy the ending as much, otherwise I may have rated it a little higher.

I’d say, though, interesting. Worth a watch for the entertainment value, if anything.

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