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Strange Magic

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Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

by Hope Madden

I remember so clearly, back in 2016 when Now You See Me 2 came out, thinking—hold the phone, Now You See Me made enough money to merit a sequel?

Imagine my surprise a decade on finding that apparently there’s interest enough for a third episode, Now You See Me, Now You Don’t.

Is there reason to hope the third Magician Robin Hood film will be at least a fun spectacle?

Ruben Fleischer directs, which seems fitting because it was on his zom-com masterstroke Zombieland that NYSM co-stars Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson first teamed up. Both actors return to their tricky ways as egotistical control freak Atlas (Eisenberg) and amiable mentalist Merritt (Harrelson), working this time from a script co-written by Zombieland (and Deadpool) scribe Rhett Reese.

That all looks promising, but magic is nothing if not sleight of hand.

A lot of familiar faces from NYSM 1 & 2, plus three scrappy new magicians—Bosco (Dominic Sessa), Charlie (Justice Smith), and June (Ariana Greenblatt)—join forces to defeat diabolical South African diamond heiress, Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).

Pike is perfect, effortlessly cutting the ideal figure as the elegant, narcissistic, ultra-wealthy villain. Smith once again charms as a self-deprecating nerd. Eisenberg seems like he might be in literal pain delivering this dialog.

And there’s a lot! At least 25% of Eisenberg’s lines are delivered as voiceover, while his character explains everything the viewer may not know about the last two episodes, the characters in the current episode, missing characters, the plan for the heist, the mysterious details even he doesn’t understand. If magic or moviemaking is about show over tell, Fleischer doesn’t know it.

What is a Now You See Me movie, really? It’s a heist flick plus magic plus social justice. At least one of those three elements is likely to please any viewer. But Reese’s script, co-written with Seth Grahame-Smith and Michael Lesslie, is nothing but exposition. Worse, Fleischer’s direction (and all that dialog) drains the wonder from every scene.

The film plays more like a Super Friends episode from the 1970s: lots of very colorful, one-dimensional characters and over-the-top villainy lazily packaged for mass consumption. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more with a big bowl of Sugar Corn Pops.

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Vault Vamp

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Borderlands

by Hope Madden

I want very much to love that Cate Blanchett keeps making Eli Roth movies. Maybe I could find that love if Roth would put her in something he knows how to make—a horror film—instead of trapping her inside a genre he can’t seem to figure out himself.

Borderlands is Roth’s big screen adaptation of a popular video game, a Mad Max style fantasy that follows low life bounty hunter Lilith (Blanchett) to a vile planet of opportunists and thieves on a quest to retrieve the kidnapped daughter of a mogul (Edgar Ramírez).

But daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt, Barbie) doesn’t want to be rescued and soon, begrudgingly, Lilith becomes part of Tina’s ragtag band of misfit heroes (along with Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Florian Munteanu and the voice of Jack Black).

That’s a good cast, top to bottom. Black and Blanchett co-led Roth’s 2018 misfire The House with a Clock in its Walls. It wasn’t a big miss. It was a fine if unremarkable adaptation of the John Bellairs novel for kids. But Blanchett and Black were fun.

This go-round, Black’s limited to pointless annoyance as he voices robot sidekick Claptrap. Blanchett is glorious, naturally, cutting an imposing video game figure with sly wit and grace. Greenblatt’s a bit of fun, Hart’s underused. But the cast is not the problem.

Roth feels out of sorts. The action is not compelling, the comic timing is way off, there’s little chemistry among his merry band, the stakes feel low, surprises are few, meaningful transitions from one set up to the next don’t exist, the FX are not great.

There are two main action set pieces (that’s not nearly enough, by the way) that could have amounted to something interesting: one with a car and a giant piss field monster and the second with an underground tunnel full of lunatics. Roth can’t generate either the exhilaration or the comedy the first calls for. The second comes closer—it’s a horror set up, truth be told, and that should be an easier fit for the filmmaker—and it’s a natural video game fit. It’s the closest he comes to excitement, but it’s belabored, its end an utter disappointment.

Like the film.

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Enter Sandman

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Awake

by Hope Madden

There are so few things I enjoy more in this life than sleeping. Sleeping is the best. I love sleeping. This is one of the reasons director Mark Raso’s apocalyptic Awake got under my skin.

But it’s supposed to, after all. It’s not a comedy. It’s a spare, clever idea about some kind of celestial happening that throws off our hard wiring enough that we lose the ability to fall asleep. This power surge affects more than just our own circadian rhythms, though. It also shuts down all electric power, including car engines.

Jill (Gina Rodriguez) was tired already. She just finished the late shift as security at a local hospital when she picked her kids up for their day together—her son Noah (Lucius Hoyos) goes more reluctantly than her young daughter Mathilda (Ariana Greenblatt). By the time Jill understands what’s happening, she realizes the kind of danger her daughter is in—from religious zealots as well as government officials—because Mathilda can sleep.

So, there you have it. There’s a fight against the clock (the film outlines in great detail exactly how this will disorient and then eventually kill you) for this mother to figure out how her daughter will 1) survive the apocalypse and 2) continue to survive once everyone else is dead.

Rodriguez drives the film with a believable mix of savvy, grit and growing brain dysfunction. Several of the population-gone-mad set pieces are eerie and smart, although others are underdeveloped and unsatisfying.

Raso, working from a script he co-wrote with brother Joseph as well as Gregory Poirier, picks at one or two modern-day concerns but truly breaks new ground only rarely. Moments from The Mist, War of the Worlds, and just about every outbreak movie make their way into Jill’s family adventure. Borrowed as much of this is, it still comes together in a way that feels fairly fresh.

Support work from Barry Pepper, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Frances Fisher and Shamier Anderson offers the adventure shape and character while Rodriguez gives it a pulse. And some really heavy eyelids.