Then I Saw Them

Yep, I knew going in this movie would piss me off. And indeed it did. But better still, in ways I didn't expect! Now that's magic! I knew this film would be an unreliable narrator, and I also know that all the tricks we saw were bullshit (cue orchestra performance). When you have a director and an editor to put together a film with special effects, magic tricks are a lot less magic. And when you reveal and say 'oh, it was a mirror', here's a big point: at the time, no it wasn't a mirror. There was no mirror there at the time, it was added when the scene called for revealing a mirror! And don't expect me to believe that there was a mirror that big and clean, either! Bullocks!

(Why would I give Hustle or Leverage a pass on this exact same point? Because they are light and comedic, they are fun. This was trying to dramatic and serious, but no, the need to force the plot drained away any tension. Big car chase? Yeah, it's a set up for something, and not for a moment do I believe anything was an accident. Screw you.)

So these magicians come together to pull magic stunts, and fool the police / FBI, but of course nothing is what it seems. Like the run time, for example. Looks like two hours, actually the movie is only ninety minutes. Then there is fifteen minutes of bad ending that trying to pretend it's all post-modern by saying 'resolutions don't matter', but it can't pull it off, and everything deflates as all steam falls out of the plot, and you'd better hope the audience can't demand their money back after that amount of time. Oh, and lots of end credits too.

Cast were fine, production was slick, but the general conceit of the movie annoyed me that I don't want to talk about them.

Go into this movie with eyes open, and don't expect a great ending either.

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