Last Updated on December 1, 2025
PLOT: A decade after the heist that made them infamous, the Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Dave Franco) return to mentor a younger generation of magicians looking to take down a master criminal (Rosamund Pike).
REVIEW: The Now You See Me franchise has to be one of the most unexpectedly resilient in Hollywood history. The original film by Louis Leterrier was a surprisingly massive worldwide hit, grossing over $350 million. The sequel, Now You See Me 2, made only half as much as the original domestically on a much larger budget, but was an unexpected blockbuster in China. Now, even though it’s taken nearly a decade, the franchise is back, with a hit-starved Lionsgate hoping to relaunch it for a younger crowd.
Now, I must admit that I’ve never had a soft spot for this series. All the magic heisting, which always felt more like straight-up science fiction than sleight of hand, always left me cold. Yet, I must be getting mellower as I get older, because I had a surprisingly good time with this — with it being the best in the series by a long shot (I can’t believe I enjoyed Now You See Me 3 more than The Running Man, but that’s the world we’re in, I guess). It helps that it’s directed with verve by Ruben Fleischer, who worked with stars Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson on their Zombieland movies. The result is a caper that puts more emphasis on action than previous installments and benefits from a quick pace and a terrific villain, played by Rosamund Pike with a thick South African accent and the evil of a Bond villain.
She chews the scenery and makes for a fun antagonist, with her as an evil diamond mine owner who launders money for the world’s worst criminals and comes from a family of Nazi sympathizers — yes, they pulled out all the stops to make her BAD, and Pike is having a blast. It’s also fun to see the Horsemen reunite, with Isla Fisher making a long overdue return after having sat out the second film. The fact that she was so quickly replaced in the second is acknowledged in a winking way, but everyone gets in on the fun, including a character from the second who makes an expected but welcome return in the third act (although I won’t ruin the obvious surprise). Eisenberg, despite being in his forties, still looks young, with him not seeming much older than the “kids” he mentors, which include The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, and Justice Smith. Everyone seems to be having fun, including Harrelson and Dave Franco as the most physically capable of the gang, with him using martial arts to help get them out of scrapes more often than in the last couple of movies.
Like the others, this has a strong international component, and it can’t be denied that much of the third act seems like a tourism advert for Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, which gets a lame name-check as the “Orlando of the Middle East” (cash those rebates, Lionsgate!). Yet, the film is stylishly photographed and winks at the insanity of the various schemes and twists and turns more than the other movies, which were trying to build more of a mythology or shared universe. Yet, the movie also assumes the audience is very familiar with the other films in the franchise, so if you don’t understand why — when Morgan Freeman’s character shows up midway through — everyone is so happy to see him, you might need to revisit the first two movies. And if you’re wondering where Mark Ruffalo is, that gets answered too in a very (lame) tacked-on sequence.
Is Now You See Me, Now You Don’t terrific? No — not even close. But I have to hand it to Fleischer and his cast — I had a way better time watching this than I assumed I would, as it felt like something that would be a chore. Instead, it was pretty enjoyable — so if they make a fourth one, I’m actually kinda down.
