November 11, 2025
by Carla Hay
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (2025)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the world, the action film “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (the third movie in the “Now You See Me” franchise) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: The Four Horsemen, a group of rogue vigilante American magicians, reunite and join forces with three younger American magicians to take down a wealthy South African heiress who launders money through her diamond company.
Culture Audience: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Now You See Me” franchise and viewers who don’t mind watching overstuffed and inferior sequels.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” falls into a sequel trap of having too many characters and not enough of a good story. This action sequel about vigilante magicians gets increasingly convoluted and ridiculous with superhuman antics and stale jokes. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” also uses the desperate tactic of bringing back cast members from previous “Now You See Me” movies as “surprise” cameos that aren’t very surprising at all because these characters are mentioned several times in the movie before they make their “surprise” appearances.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. The movie is the third in the “Now You See Me” series, which began with 2013’s “Now You See Me” and continued with 2016’s “Now You See Me 2.” All of these movies aren’t very good, but “Now You See Me” is the best of the three because it had an original story that the sequels are just repackaging with more tangled plots and additional characters.
It’s somewhat necessary to know what happened in the first two “Now You See Me” movies to fully understand the plot of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.” But for people who know nothing about any of these movies, the basic information to know is that the core group of magicians are called the Four Horsemen, who have various specialties and are undercover vigilantes.
J. Daniel Atlas (played by Jesse Eisenberg), the arrogant self-appointed leader of the Four Horsemen, is a master illusionist. Merritt McKinney (played by Woody Harrelson) is a cynical hypnotist, mind reader and psychic. Henley Reeves (played by Isla Fisher), Daniel’s former assistant and ex-girlfriend, is an expert escapist who is the most optimistic of the quartet. Jack Wilder (played by Dave Franco) is a friendly sleight-of-hand illusionist, an impersonator, an expert locksmith and a pickpocket.
The Four Horsemen work for a mysterious vigilante magician group called The Eye, which steals from the rich and gives to the poor. In “Now You See Me 2,” Henley was replaced by Lula May (played by Lizzy Caplan), a master of disguises, who became romantically involved with Jack, but Lula and Jack are no longer a couple. Two people who’ve crossed paths with the Four Horsemen are Dylan Rhodes (played by Mark Ruffalo) and Thaddeus Bradley (played by Morgan Freeman), who have various identities in this movie series, due to plot twists.
Spoiler alert for those who don’t know what happened in the first two “Now You See Me” movies: In the first “Now You See Me” movie, Thaddeus was a magic debunker but was later revealed to be the Grand Master of The Eye. Dylan was an agent for the FBI and had a secret vendetta that was eventually revealed. In “Now You See Me 2,” Dylan (no longer with the FBI) became the supervisor of the Four Horsemen.
In “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” it’s explained that Dylan is in prison on corruption charges. Thaddeus is now retired from The Eye, but he still remains connected to The Eye in the occasional role of a consultant. Thaddeus is in the movie for less than 20 minutes in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.”
The movie’s sound mixing is absolutely terrible, beginning with the very first scene, where the volume on the dialogue is too low, but the score music obnoxiously blares too loudly and nearly drowns out what people are saying on screen. This problem happens repeatedly throughout the movie. Anyone seeing “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with theater-quality audio should know that this audio problem is not the fault of the equipment system that’s playing the movie. The problem is the movie’s sound mixing, which really is that bad.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” begins at a warehouse party in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, where an excited crowd has gathered to watch the reunion of the original Four Horsemen, who disbanded nearly 10 years ago. But surprise! It’s all an illusion concocted by a trio of magicians in their 20s who are Four Horsemen fanatics and want to be just like the Four Horsemen.
Bosco LeRoy (played by Dominic Sessa), the cocky leader of this young trio, is a master illusionist and a failed actor, who dropped out of Juilliard when he couldn’t pay the tuition. June (played by Ariana Greenblatt) is a brash expert locksmith who got kicked out of every boarding school she attended when she was underage. Charlie (played by Justice Smith) is an introverted orphan who learned magic tricks from the magic shop where he works.
Daniel finds out about the Four Horsemen reunion hoax and who caused this scam. And faster than you can say “stupid sequel,” he tracks down Bosco, June and Charlie that night. Daniel tells them that he was sent by The Eye to recruit Bosco, June and Charlie to work with Daniel on stealing the Heart Diamond, which is reportedly the most valuable diamond in the world.
The Heart Diamond is owned by Vanderberg Corp., a South African company that publicly has a prestigious image. But in the underground criminal network, Vanderberg Corp. has a reputation for being a money launderer that sells over-priced diamonds to fund terrorists and other criminals. It isn’t long before the heroes of the story don’t just want to steal the Heart Diamond. They also want to take down Vanderberg Corp. and its evil leader.
The CEO and largest shareholder of Vanderberg Corp. is Veronika Vanderberg (played by Rosamund Pike), a “cold as ice” femme fatale who inherited the position from her deceased father Peter. Besides being involved in covert criminal activities, Veronika has another dirty secret: She was responsible for the death of a boy 15 years ago.
This secret haunts Veronika, who has been getting phone calls from a mystery blackmailer who knows this secret and theatens to expose it. The blackmailer’s voice is disguised in these phone calls. All it means is that “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” makes it obvious that this secret will be part of a big plot development in the movie.
Bosco, June and Charlie are star-struck by Daniel and are eager to work with him. But what this trio of younger magicians really want is a reunion of the Four Horsemen. And that’s exactly what happens when Daniel reluctantly reunites with Merritt, Henley and Jack so that they can all work with Bosco, June and Charlie on this new mission.
The globe-trotting misson takes them to various countries, such as the United States, France, Belgium, and the United Arab Emirates. (The movie was actually filmed in Hungary and in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi.) Lots of disguises, generation-gap jokes, silly-looking stunts and cringeworthy dialogue then take up the rest of the movie. Stanley is crankier and more insufferable than ever before. He gets into conflicts with just about everyone on his team, especially Bosco, who probably irks Stanley because Bosco reminds Stanley of a younger version of Stanley.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” has some very choreographed action scenes that will no doubt thrill some viewers. But too many of the action scenes over-rely on unrealistic-looking visual effects that make these characters look like more like non-human superheroes instead of human magicians. Most of the original “Now You See Me” cast members look like they’re only in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” for their salaries, and they give mediocre performances because there’s no real personal growth to these characters.
June and Charlie spend entirely too much of their screen time acting like awestruck fans of the Four Horsemen. Bosco eventually gets over feeling star-struck when he sees the flaws in the Four Horsemen and why the group’s interpersonal problems end up resurfacing during this reunion. Sessa’s performance as Bosco fares the best in combining the comedic and dramatic parts of his character’s personality. Pike looks like she’s having fun portraying the glamorous chief villain Veronika, but at times, Veronika looks like she would be more at home in an “Austin Powers” movie.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is an example of mishandling the concept of “more is better.” The “Now You See Me” franchise has gone way past being about a group of ragtag magicians who operate under the radar in their Robin Hood-type of charity. This franchise has turned into an international spy series, where the magician protagonists are celebrities who get caught up in so many high-profile tricks, it’s hard to believe that they can’t be detected when they’re supposedly undercover. Just like a self-absorbed, has-been celebrity with a bloated ego and nothing creatively original to offer, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” thinks that merely existing should be enough, when it’s just re-using the same old tricks with different character names.
Lionsgate will release “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” in U.S. cinemas on November 14, 2025.
