It’s been since 2016 that we’ve had a Now You See Me movie in theaters. The mashup of magic and heist with whatever ideals the Eye has was a fascinating one for audiences. For those first two movies, they end up as entertaining bits of action where you have to stretch the suspension of disbelief. With the return of the Four Horsemen, there’s more suspension required, but there’s also some fresh new members of the group being added. This time around, we have the old guard of Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt (Woody Harrelson), Jack (Dave Franco), and Henley (Isla Fisher) joining up with a trio of new magicians in Charlie (Justice Smith), Bosco (Dominic Sessa), and June (Ariana Greenblatt).

The three new people are brought on board because they’ve been impersonating the Four Horsemen to put on magic shows, and The Eye has mysteriously been sending out invitations in the form of tarot cards to each of the Horsemen. After the events of the second film, everyone hates each other, so the new people act as a great way to reintroduce audiences, but also, from a storytelling standpoint, to help improve the chemistry.

The villain here is Veronika Vanderberg (played by Rosamund Pike), who runs one of the oldest diamond families in history, but with some added bits of criminality and corruption. Vanderberg is a fine villain who ends up challenging the Horsemen in more ways than one. It’s also just kind of nice to see a villain in a film in 2025 who is a completely rich idiot.

The Good Of Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Ruben Fleischer directs the hell out of this movie. It’s stylish, full of flair, and there’s no other movie series you can think of watching this. The best part of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is that the new cast seamlessly moves in with the old guard. They each get their own segments to mesh together, but seeing the old generation with Jesse Eisenberg butt heads and go up with the younger generation with Dominic Sessa is great.

The writing here for the banter between the magicians is excellent. They give everyone their own time to shine, and splitting them up is a stroke of genius. Woody Harrelson is always a highlight, and in this movie, he’s no different. The real surprise is the other characters that come around in the film. Normally, it would feel overwhelming, but this movie juggles the different characters really well.

The new kids are very much aimed at bringing in that younger audience for those who might not have been present when the first film came out in 2016. They’re in this for different reasons than the original Horsemen, but they still want to change the world for the better.

The scenes where you can see this dynamic come into play are the best ones in the film. Atlas doing his old school magic alongside Bosco and his crew, acting out a diversion with security, is an early highlight. There’s also a lot of humor here that breaks up some of the longer, more expositional moments of the film.

The Bad And Ugly Of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t

There are some massive logical questions that come into play with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. Like way more than what comes with the first films. That suspension of disbelief that I was mentioning before gets stretched to the absolute maximum, especially during the big explanation of why their whole trick and really the entire plot of the film goes down. There are simply far too many coincidences going on all at once. And I know, this is a movie about magicians trying to steal things for the good of humankind for a group called The Eye.

Even with all of that baked in, the coincidences are a bit too much to overcome while watching the movie. Also, the main cast might mesh pretty well together, but some of the other characters that get brought back or added to the mix don’t mesh as well. There’s also just a stock, cliche death/dying scene in the middle of the film that sticks out like a sore thumb. This is where the problems with the script and relying so hard on the chemistry of the cast come in. It’s not a terrible script; it sufficiently gets the plot from A to B to C, but between Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, there were too many cooks in this kitchen.

All These Issues Aside, This Was Still Very Entertaining

Through the nearly two-hour runtime of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, there were plenty of points where they make you want to roll your eyes. Accents sound off, logic goes out the window, and it feels a bit silly. However, there’s still a lot to like in this movie, including the premise. This magical Ocean’s Eleven of magic, with some extravagant tricks, still lands. The cast comes together and even through those massive logical holes, there’s a good time to be had with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. It’s an entertaining as hell movie where there’s some potential for more with this new cast.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t releases in theaters on November 14th.

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