Believe it or not, the Now You See Me franchise is officially a trilogy. It’s a series about a gang of smug magicians who blend illusion with outright thievery to rob from the rich and redistribute to the masses—like a fever dream for Marxists who fancy themselves as caped crusaders.

Twelve years ago (yeah, it’s been that long), a secret occult society called the Eye recruited four illusionists to swipe billions from a corrupt insurance tycoon and funnel it back to policy victims denied coverage. The flick dropped right in the thick of Occupy Wall Street’s heyday, when sticking it to the one-percenters still felt fresh and righteous.

Three years later, Now You See Me 2 rolled into theaters. Everyone returned except Isla Fisher (who sat out due to pregnancy), with Michael Caine’s billionaire bigwig back for a stab at revenge—only to get fleeced again by the Four Horsemen. Then? Radio silence. Nine long years of nothing. Most folks had mercifully forgotten the franchise, which wasn’t exactly a cultural juggernaut to begin with.

By 2025, blending ancient occultism with Karl Marx’s playbook feels about as fresh as a Soviet-era propaganda reel. But Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy runs deep—no new ideas, just recycled IP scraped from the bottom of the barrel. So Lionsgate dusted off Now You See Me for a third go-round, hoping its faded clout could justify the revival. They tossed in some new blood, including one of the worst actors of our generation: Justice Smith.

Twelve years after their glory days, the surviving Four Horsemen—master illusionist J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), street magician Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher)—have gone to ground. Their mentor, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), is rotting in a Russian gulag after a heist gone sideways. Enter a cocky trio of young guns: quick-witted Charlie (Justice Smith), gadget-whiz Bosco LeRoy (Dominic Sessa), and nimble acrobat June Rouclere (Ariana Greenblatt).

They wow a New York crowd with a fake Horsemen gig, using deepfakes and holograms to con a slimy crypto bro and rain his dirty money down on the rubes below. The stunt piques the Eye’s interest, that shadowy magic cabal from the originals. A cryptic tarot card pulls them to Atlas, who ropes the rookies into a high-wire job: nicking “the Heart,” the world’s biggest uncut diamond, from Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).

She’s the steely CEO of a South African mining conglomerate, built on her Nazi daddy’s wartime spoils and now whitewashing cash for international arms dealers. At a lavish Antwerp gala, the beefed-up crew—old vets plus newbies—unleashes a barrage of sleights, swaps, and smokescreens to yoink the rock right under the noses of clueless guards.

They bolt to the Eye’s twisty French chateau for a powwow with ex-grandmaster Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), whose riddles crack open Vanderberg’s ledger of war crimes and graft. But when her bought-and-paid-for cops raid the joint, the magicians counter with mind-bending illusions: an Ames room that warps reality, Escher stairs that loop into infinity, a whirling hallway that turns hunters into the hunted. Sparks fly between generations, buried secrets spill, and the razor’s edge between con and conviction frays in a cyclone of card flourishes, close calls, and escalating mayhem—paving the way for a showdown where legacies collide.

Plenty works against this movie, especially after a 12-year layoff. For starters, nobody in this cast is likable anymore. They’re all insufferably arrogant and entitled, turning our so-called heroes into a pack of preening assholes you’d cross the street to avoid. The film tries to paper over this with its classic commie con: prop up the “good” thieves by stacking the deck with even worse villains. But when your only trick to make the protagonists shine is pitting them against murderers and mobsters, that’s a glaring red flag about your core problem.

Worse, the script just recycles the first two films’ beats—same heists, same twists, same smug reveals. The lone stab at evolution? Shoehorning in those three newbies, banking they’ll someday rebrand the franchise. Fat chance. Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt hold their own with raw energy, but Justice Smith? Pound for pound, he’s Hollywood’s most wooden plank. Bafflingly, the plot orbits his Charlie like a bad moon—a cipher with zero depth beyond being the crew’s perpetual punching bag. Every time Smith’s mug fills the frame, the energy tanks; you can feel the movie groaning under his blank stares and phoned-in quips. If your lead’s charisma rivals a damp sock, buckle up for a rough ride.

It’s a mess of a script, propping up an unlikable ensemble who spend two hours high-fiving over their own lame CGI parlor tricks. Why cram in more magicians? The originals were a tight quartet; this bloated octet just dilutes the sleight-of-hand into sloppy chaos. The illusions—once the series’ secret sauce—now look cheaper, with green-screen goofs that scream “budget cuts” louder than a botched vanish.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is a sequel that didn’t need to exist, offering zero fresh illusions to the formula. It’s a tired encore from a troupe that peaked a decade ago, content to saw the same lady in half while the audience checks their watches. Skip the smoke and mirrors; this one’s all sleight of hand, no heart.

2/5

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