Now You See Me Now You Don’t review (2025)

The trick with Now You See Me Now You Don’t is that the third time is not the charm.

Instead, it’s another unsuccessful attempt at recapturing the magic of the original Now You See Me.

That 2013 film brought Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco together as the Four Horsemen, a group of magicians who use their skills to rob from the rich and give to the poor.

Three years later, the sequel Now You See Me 2 arrived with Lizzy Caplan replacing the pregnant Fisher. The sequel lacked the charm of the original stemming largely from the cast swap. Caplan is a quality performer, but the real magic of the series was the chemistry of the four leads and she was in a thankless position.

One of the more intriguing aspects of Now You See Me Now You Don’t was the original cast reuniting for their first true sequel.

Perhaps in an effort to play into the “what was old is new again” trope, three younger and decidedly cooler magicians — Charlie, June and Bosco (Justice Smith, Arianna Greenblatt and Dominic Sessa) — take center stage. These upstarts even borrow a few pages from the Four Horsemen for their shtick, which puts them on the radar of J. Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), who seeks them out to assist with potentially the grandest heist attempted.

Atlas needs their help to take down Veronika Vanderberg (a very enjoyable Rosamund Pike), the CEO of a diamond company, who’s using her business as a means to partner up with some of the shadiest criminals on the planet. While trick engineer Charlie and pickpocket June are thrilled at the thought of teaming with a Horsemen, Bosco needs more convincing as he immediately takes a disliking to the prickly Atlas.

There is some early concern that Now You See Me Now You Don’t is going to be a bait and switch with the rest of the Horsemen — Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Franco) — sitting out the bulk of the film. Director Reuben Fleischer, reuniting with his Zombieland stars Eisenberg and Harrelson, saves the Horsemen’s reunion for the film’s first big action sequence.

Realizing their first mission was just the initial step in a much larger heist, the Horsemen and the Geldings have to find a way to coexist and work out their own internal tension.

MORE:

• Weapons review (2025)
• Tyler Perry’s Finding Joy review (2025)
• Jurassic Games Extinction review (2025)
• G.I. Joe Classified Series Combat Armor Cobra Commander action figure review No. 168

The script very much feels like it’s been doctored, hammered out, reworked and stitched together by Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick & Rhett Reese, and Seth Grahame-Smith. Since Veronika doesn’t have any magicians or magic-skeptics at her disposal, she seems overmatched with her squad of brute force goons.

One of the big missteps in Now You See Me Now You Don’t is there’s no battle of wits at play. It feels like a really easy layup for the third installment of a magic-focused franchise would be for The Horsemen to have to square off with Veronika’s hotshot and arrogant young upstarts. Instead, the screenwriters struggle to properly balance seven — with an occasional eighth ally (like Morgan Freeman’s Thaddeus Bradley) scheming against Veronika.

Another problem with the script is the screenwriters’ insistence that the new kids on stage are so much better than their older counterparts. This is an ongoing theme for Now You See Me Now You Don’t as the younger trio constantly shows up the Horsemen.

To some extent, Now You See Me Now You Don’t feels like that inevitable point of a long-running sitcom where the young, precocious kids are starting to grow up and need to get replaced by cuter, younger and sassier co-stars.

Given the low physical demands of the series, it doesn’t feel like it’s time to put the old guard out to pasture just yet. A fourth installment is reportedly in the works, which seemed like a more fitting point to add in fresh blood to the franchise.

The larger ensemble doesn’t really benefit anyone since they’re all jockeying for screen time. That allows Pike to stand out more since she’s the one cast member given clearance to stand in the spotlight solo. She’s terrific as the flippant billionaire used to getting her way at all times.

Fleischer does deliver well on the more action-based sequences taking advantage of the elaborate set designs.

Now You See Me Now You Don’t lacks the element of surprise as the original while the new additions seem largely unnecessary — at least for this installment. Maybe the fourth time can rekindle the magic?

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Lionsgate

Before checking out Now You See Me Now You Don’t revisit the first two chapters on Blu-Ray with the Now You See Me double feature available on Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.