Into the World of Modern Magic

          I am a huge fan of magic. Actually, I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. Most of the genres of the Animes that I have watched include fantasy, which include magic most of the time. I’m an avid magic fan, to the point that I would do anything just to be transported to a world filled with authentic magic. But after I watched “Now You See Me”, a 2013 film directed by Louis Leterrier, it was a whole new experience for me because it was my first time to watch a movie that includes in its storyline the forms of magic possible to create in the real world.

Here is the trailer of the movie from VISO Trailers:

(Source: VISO Trailers. (2012, November 20). Now you see me - Official Trailer [HD] [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHDYZJWLXA)

          The movie is all about four different people who do not know each other, but have one thing in common: They possess vast amount of knowledge about magic tricks and they actually hold outstanding magic capabilities. One day, the four of them received some sort of "tarot cards". Written on the opposite side of the cards is an address, which will lead them into a completely different track in life. This marks the beginning of the legend of the four horsemen. Together, they organized three outstanding magical shows that involves giving away their audience a huge amount of money. In order to have a big amount of money, they had to initiate a robbing business using "magic". But since there is no strong evidence against them, the police can't do anything reckless against them other than putting the four horsemen on the watch list. On their final trick, in order to make them appear innocent, they framed one of the antagonists in the movie by putting every single amount of money they stole into the antagonist's car, making him look like the mastermind in all the robbery cases. In the end, the four horsemen were all shocked from what they found out. The one person who mobilized them to create best magical tricks in their entire life was no other than an FBI agent. The entire time, the agent was acting that he was one of the enemies. But it turned out that he has been an accomplice in the very beginning. "First rule of magic? Always be the smartest guy in the room."

          The very thing that made this movie get my attention is its video effects. The effects gave way to emphasize the different magic tricks being performed by the actors and the actress, which takes my breath away every time a trick was performed. Another thing that I love about this magical movie are the seemingly unbelievable tricks like teleportation and illusion magic. These “unbelievable” tricks were explained detail-by-detail in the movie which made it look possible to carry tricks like these in real life. The movie left no dangling questions inside me because it is a kind of movie that is complete in thought. I also think that the movie has no logical loopholes, which could damage the movie’s storyline. It is a complete move, I would say.

Teleporting from Vegas to a bank in Paris in 3 seconds. Real? Nah, just a trick.

          The only thing that I do not like about the movie is the message that it would like to convey. It somehow sends a message to the audience that it is alright to commit a crime as long as you will not get caught, or there will be insufficient evidence to prove that one is guilty. In the movie, the four horsemen, who robbed different people and institutions, were not proven guilty because there are no sufficient evidence to prove that they really did the crime.

A Horseman (left) playing around with the cops, confident enough that he will not be imprisoned because of “Magic”.

          But I think, the director of the movie would like to convey that kind of message because he wants to show an instance that could possibly happen if Magic tricks were misused. We can’t ignore this possibility because, in a modern world like ours today, people does not actually believe in magic, and would find a news article that contains the news headline “People held in prison for using magic to rob a bank” hilarious. Like, SERIOUSLY?! Who in this world would believe in this magical robbery incident?