Now You See Me (2013)

I actually saw Now You See Me several days ago, but I had a detour in Las Vegas, where money magically disappeared from my wallet.  While in Vegas I thought about the last movie based on magicians I saw, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, which was set in Vegas, whereas Now You See Me varies the locale throughout the film.

Despite having a few days to reflect on the film, I find I don't have that much more to say about it, or that my opinion has changed all that much.  I did, however, realize that despite that Now You See Me wasn't a comedy, I actually laughed more than I did while watching Burt Wonderstone.

Now You See Me is an example of a movie that I was expecting to be so awful that I'm probably giving this a little more credit than I should simply because it wasn't a disaster.  The setup alone was already something that was making me cringe a little.  Four magicians of various skill sets - played by Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson - are brought together by an unknown benefactor.  A year after meeting they perform in Vegas rebranded as "The Four Horsemen".  During their performance, they are able to rob a bank in Paris, giving the money back to the audience in attendance.

FBI Agent Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is brought in to investigate along with Interpol Agent Vargas (Mélanie Laurent).  They aren't able to make anything stick to the Four Horsemen, and charging them with the crime would indicate that the FBI now believes in magic.  Knowing there's an explanation for all of this, Rhodes and Vargas meets with Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), and ex-magician that makes a living by exposing the secrets of other magicians.  Bradley explains to Rhodes how they pulled off the first trick, but that the Four Horsemen have been planning for a long time and will likely always be a step ahead of the FBI.

You'll find that the story spends more time focusing on Mark Ruffalo's and his Keystone Cops antics than the Horsemen.  His character also seemed to be excessively angry at times, although some of that made a little sense by the end of the film.  Overall, the plot gets little muddled as it goes on and inconsistencies pop up.  I felt like resolution of the film wasn't very satisfying and a few things were left unanswered.  Oddly, this didn't bug me that much, and that's probably due to the fact that I had enjoyed the movie so much up until that point, that a few inconsistencies weren't enough to ruin it for me.

The main reason why I enjoyed the film so much is that the dialog is actually very snappy and funny.  I was really expecting a much more serious film, so the humor was a pleasant surprise.  The pace of the film is also very brisk with more action and chases than I expected.  I didn't realize going into Now You See Me that it was directed by Louis Leterrier, who's directed films like the first two Transporter films and Unleashed.  It looks like he went into his bag of tricks to add some action elements and it served the film well.  You know what I just realized?  Louis Leterrier directed Edward Norton's The Incredible Hulk, and directed Mark Ruffalo in this film, who was The Avengers' Hulk.  Does mean we should expect Eric Bana in Leterrier's next film?

Another really strong element of the film was that there's great chemistry between the Four Horseman.  The cast, especially Woody Harrelson, seemed to be having a lot of fun together and you really feel that on screen.  Despite the good chemistry, there's not a lot of character development.  At the end of the film, we really don't know nothing about this group of people. Again, I wasn't terribly upset by this, but fleshing out the foursome would have been nice.

Now You See Me is a surprisingly entertaining film, that has a great pace, funny dialog, and a good cast that plays well off each other.  The story is definitely the weak point, but I think you'll have enough fun with the film that you won't notice or bug you too much.  I think it's worth a matinee.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Safe (2012) - Movie Review

This is the type of action film I've been wanting out of Jason Statham for years.  All it took was the Russian and Chinese mafia to chase a little Chinese girl to make it happen.  Enough with this 'transporting' of hot models.

Safe stars Statham as Luke Wright, who's name will be drilled in your head after once sequence of dialog where his full name is repeated about 8,000 times in a row.  This is during a conversation between two people who both know who he is, yet have to say his full name over and over as if there might be some doubt as to whom they are talking about.  We've all figured it out by this point, have you guys? 

Anyway, Statham is a cage fighter that was supposed to throw a fight, but of course he screws up and doesn't, so now the Russian mob makes him pay.  Rather than kill him, they kill his wife and threaten to kill anyone he's ever going to know.  This forces Wright becomes a bum, wandering the streets unable to have much of the way of human contact for fear of being responsible for someone's death.

Juxtaposed with Luke's story, is the story of Mei (Catherine Chan), a Chinese girl that has the mutant ability to memorize any number she's seen in an instant.  This makes her very useful to the Chinese mafia, who call themselves 'old school', because they don't use paper or computerized records.  She's basically kidnapped  by the mob, with the promise they will take care of her sick mother as long as she works for them.  The mob is all about family and stuff.  At one point she's given a very lengthy and important number, which has now made her the target of Russian mafia, who want this number too.  We aren't sure what for yet, but more will be revealed as the movie goes on.

Mei and Luke's paths cross, literally, when Luke notices Mei hiding from a group of Russian mobsters.  Even though he really had no reason to get involved (other than maybe take advantage of an opportunity to stick it to the Russians), Luke Wright leaps into action and saves the girl.  He's the former cage fighter/bum with the heart of gold, I guess.  Only, we are soon to find out that he's no ordinary cage fighter/bum.  Like The Transporter, there much more to him than meets the eye.  Oh wait, I'm thinking of The Transformers.  Why hasn't Statham been in any of the Transformer movies?  I'm getting off track again...

I have to wonder if director/writer Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans, Uptown Girls) is a fan of old school action films. Safe has all the 80's action cliches: car chases, gun fights, fight fights, dirty cops, bad dialog, bosses with over the top accents, etc.  It's actually not a bad effort though, but I wouldn't expect any less from the writer of Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher.  The action moves along at a very fast pace and you never feel like the movie drags during its 90 minute runtime.  It also has a nice 'gotcha' at the end.  I hesitate to call it a twist, but it caught me by surprise even after I had been warned about it before seeing the movie.

As far as the action goes, it's all done well.  There's lots of nice Statham ass-kicking moments punctuated by loud punches and thuds.  There were a few too many quick-cuts with the editing during the fighting though.  This is still a pet-peeve of mine.  The other thing you'll like is that nobody really ever hesitates to act in the movie, if you think a guy is about to punch someone, don't worry, he is.  Have you ever watched an action film and wondered why the guy with the gun doesn't just shoot the other guy when he has the chance?  That happens here.  Safe is a violent film and totally-over-the-top, but it's done in an entertaining way. 

It is pretty much completely a Statham vehicle, with the rest of the cast made up largely of no-names or people you may barely recognize from other small roles.  The only person I recognized was Chris Sarandon, who most of you know will know best as 'Prince Humperdinck' from The Princess Bride, and James Hong, who was 'Lo Pan' from Big Trouble in Little China.

The soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh helped with the nostalgic action feel.  At times sounded like it was copying Mission Impossible or Lethal Weapon.  The end credits sounded like Predator theme.  Whether that was intentional or Mothersbaugh isn't that creative I don't know.

Safe isn't breaking any new ground in the action genre.  It's actually pretty dumb, but it's dumb fun.  Even if you aren't a huge fan of Jason Statham, Safe is an entertaining action flick that you can just shut your brain off, watch and move on after.  If you are a fan of Statham, then I think you'll be pleased as this is a step up from some of his more recent efforts.  This will likely be out of the theater soon, so I wouldn't make a huge effort to see it, but if you wait a month or two and catch it on a rental, I think you'll enjoy it quite a bit.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars