Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fischer, Melanie Laurent, Michael Caine
Now You See Me is a good film saddled with a bad film's ending. Right up until its finale, it is an entertaining and engaging caper movie, and then it uses the goodwill engendered by its first two thirds as leverage against the cheap trick it pulls at the end. When a film's twist ending requires the audience to completely disregard everything they've learned about a character, to ignore the way that character behaved even when he or she was alone and had no one (except the audience) to keep up appearances for, it's not clever. It's cheating. A good twist is one which not only makes sense according to the film's internal logic, but which inspires multiple viewings so that you can pick up on all the little hints and bits of foreshadowing leading to the revelation. A bad twist is one which exists solely for the shock value that comes with the first viewing and which, on subsequent viewings, just makes everything leading up to the twist seem dumb. The ending of this film is garbage; the rest of the film is pretty good... so I guess I'm recommending the first 100 minutes and warning against the last 15.
