Now You See Me Movie Review

First published at Mostly Movies on 11 June 2013.

It opens with an impressive magic trick – one that is played on you, the movie audience – as Jesse Eisenberg, playing street magician Daniel Atlas plies a card trick for both his fictional street audience and the camera. I will admit to having been duped by the card trick even though I knew it was really a trick of digital effects more than anything else. That, unfortunately, is the method behind most of the magic in Now You See Me, a movie about magicians pulling off one of the greatest tricks in history that fails to enthrall as magic and just barely holds up even as movie magic.

The Incredible Hulk Movie Review

The Incredible Hulk has the distinction of being not only the best teaser for The Avengers, but perhaps the most capable of standing alone, the most brisk in its storytelling. It falls somewhat short of Iron Man, which elevated the bar slightly by having a charismatic actor and hero in Robert Downey, Jr., who really kept those films light on their feet. Edward Norton in the Bruce Banner role is more sullen and brooding, as anyone with a Hulk affliction likely would be. He can’t risk being around anything stressful or anger-inducing lest he transform into a huge green rage monster, tearing up everything in sight and then waking up nude in another country (his first incident in the film takes him from Brazil to Guatemala).