‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ Works, but Can’t Match the Magic of Its Predecessors

The best franchises are the ones that can survive a slip-up. Where even if one sequel isn’t as great as the ones before it, there’s still enough there to get you to come back again and again. That’s how we felt about Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third film in the magical heist franchise starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco. This installment has everything you want from the franchise but doesn’t quite dazzle as much as the first two. It’s a little undercooked, a little light on character, but there are still enough new crumbs here that, even if it falls short, we’d be first in line to see another one.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (who, apparently, is already working on a fourth film), Now You See Me: Now You Don’t picks up a few years after the events of the previous film. The legendary Four Horsemen have not been seen in public in a long time, but when a new group of magicians starts to tiptoe on their territory, the two groups are forced together for a magic trick bigger than any they’ve done before. They’re going to steal the biggest diamond in the world from an evil money launderer played by Rosamund Pike.

That new group is comprised of Justice Smith (I Saw the TV Glow), Ariana Greenblatt (Barbie), and Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), and this is their movie. As great as it is to see Eisenberg, Harrelson, Fisher, and Franco back, they take a major back seat to this fresh, younger generation of magicians. Their characters, with their unique stories and points of view, allow the film to shine a light on the entire concept of magic, with some nice nostalgia and welcome reverence. Each clashes with the original Horsemen in multiple ways, too, allowing for tons of fun banter and magical interludes.

The issue is that as the film moves along, there are just too many characters to do each of them justice. They start pairing off, even more people are added, and by the end, you can’t help but feel that several of the characters are severely underdeveloped. They’re too often there to stand around and be a plot device rather than anything else.

Even as the twists and turns of the film begin to pile up—and trust us, they do—the huge number of characters makes the impossible tricks we came to see feel even more impossible than usual. These movies are all about deception and revelation, and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t has plenty of them. But more often than you’d like, you can’t help but think, “Wait, what are those other five characters doing right now?†Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it does not, but as a result, the magic fades just a little.

Thankfully, the new cast really shines. Smith, as the magic nerd of the group, fanboys about the Horsemen just as we would about the actors portraying them. Greenblatt has that cool confidence she brings to every role, but now dialed up to 11. And Sessa, as the reluctant leader of the group, once again establishes himself as a commanding leading man. Plus, the three newbies help the original cast at least try and take their characters into new directions, both narratively and emotionally. It doesn’t always work, but it helps fill the time.

The script, which is credited to four writers, does its best to pull the rug out from under us in all the ways the franchise promises and is partially successful in that. A few moments are telegraphed, others land just right, and a few leave us scratching our heads a bit too much, even when they’re explicitly explained after the fact. As for the direction by Fleisher, he does his best to balance everything, but with so many locations and characters, the end result lacks a bit of the flair Jon M. Chu gave to the previous movie.

In the end, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t definitely has some of the magic we know and love from this franchise, but just not enough to live up to the previous films. If you like the other movies, these characters, and this world, it’s hard to be too mad at it. These films are all about joy, and even with things a little messy, there’s simple joy in watching their magic. It might be the least rewarding film in the franchise so far, but we’ll be there for the Horsemen’s next performance no matter what.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t opens November 14.

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