NOW YOU SEE ME : NOW YOU DON'T : Tuesday 25th November 2025

I saw the M Rated 'NOW YOU SEE ME : NOW YOU DON'T' earlier this week, and this American heist film is Directed by Ruben Fleischer, and is the sequel to 2016's 'Now You See Me 2' which was Directed by Jon M. Chu and is the third instalment in the 'Now You See Me' film franchise. Those first two films in the series grossed worldwide US$687M off the back of combined production budgets of US$165M. Ruben Fleischer's prior feature film output takes in his 2009 debut with 'Zombieland' which he would follow up with the likes of 'Gangster Squad' in 2013, 'Venom' in 2018, 'Zombieland : Double Tap' in 2019, 'Venom : Let There Be Carnage' in 2021 and 'Uncharted' in 2022. The film was released here in Australia and the US on 13th and 14th of this month respectively, has so far grossed US$150M off the back of a US$90M production budget and has generated mixed critical reviews. It has been reported that a fourth film is already in development, and is set to be Directed by a returning Ruben Fleischer.  

Set some ten years after the events of the second film, a trio of young magicians - Charlie (Jutice Smith), Bosco LeRoy (Dominic Sessa), and June Rouclere (Ariana Greenblatt) put on a fake Four Horsemen magic show via deepfakes and holograms, where they drain the mobile phone wallets of the corrupt owners of a cryptocurrency exchange and distribute the stolen funds among the attendees. After the show when they have decamped back to their secret loft apartment, they are unexpectedly approached by J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), one of the original Horsemen. He recruits them in a plot apparently given to him by the Eye, the secret magic society, via a tarot card. Their mission, simply to steal 'the Heart', the largest diamond in the world. The diamond is in the possession of Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), the ruthless head of a South African diamond company started by her father, a former Nazi who uses the business to launder money for war criminals. Soon after, while preparing for a private viewing and auction of the diamond in Antwerp, Veronika receives a phone call from an unknown man using a voice changer, who threatens to expose her company's illegal activities if she does not give him the diamond. Needless to say she brushes him off but is nonetheless left a little rattled.

At that private party in Antwerp, Daniel and the three recently recruited young magicians execute the heist through a combination of disguises, switching props, and misdirection to seize the diamond from Veronika. Her security and Police fail to pursue them as Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), the remaining members of the original Four Horsemen, arrive to assist them in evading capture by the local Police and Veronika's own security team. Having escaped capture by exiting from the roof via a zip line down to a waiting boat, the other three Horsemen explain that they have also received messages on tarot cards from the Eye. The Horsemen later reveal that a heist had gone wrong that resulted in their leader, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), being arrested and held in a Russian prison, resulting in the group's split and subsequent disappearance until now.

The group travels on to an estate owned by the Eye in France, where they meet Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), the former grandmaster of the Eye, who also received a card telling him to assist the Horsemen. Thaddeus says that Veronika's secrets were hidden within the estate and implores them to find it. The Police, who are on Veronika's payroll, arrive to raid the estate, forcing the group to split up and use the illusory rooms within the estate to disorient and take down the Police. Charlie and Bosco manage to find a set of seemingly secret documents exposing Veronika's client list and her company's illegal activities, and escape with Daniel and Henley, while Merritt, Jack, and June are captured by the Police. While trying to escape, Thaddeus is fatally shot and dies inside the escape tunnel with Charlie, Bosco, Daniel and Henley bidding him a tearful farewell before fleeing the scene.

Inside the local Police station, Veronika questions Merritt, who turns the tables and rattles her by deducing that, after her father's affair with their housekeeper resulted in her mother's suicide, Veronika planned the murder of her housekeeper and half-brother. Lula May (Lizzy Caplan), another Horseman, arrives heavily disguised and helps Jack and June escape, but Merritt is recaptured. The group, now reunited, begins planning to rescue Merritt, as Veronika receives another phone call from the unknown man, pressuring her to retrieve the diamond.

Veronika and the Horsemen agree to arrange a meet in Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina Circuit, where a party is being held for the Formula 1 team Veronika owns. During the swap - the Heart Diamond in exchange for Merritt, Bosco and Charlie create a distraction by stealing the F1 car on display at the party and driving off, starting a Police chase. Meanwhile, having swapped Merritt for the diamond, Veronika traps the Horsemen in a completely sealed glass cube. Veronika reveals her plans to bury them alive as sand fills up the cube. Veronika leaves with the diamond and arranges to meet with the unknown man in her vault, located out in the depths of the desert. The Horsemen manage to escape by breaking a water pipe directly above the cube and flooding it, and using Henley's diamond ring to ultimately shatter the glass. 

Veronika arrives at her vault and takes a gun from a guard. Upon entering, she learns that the unknown caller is Charlie, who is actually Veronika's long-lost half-brother, and that his mother saved him from the drowning orchestrated by her some fifteen years ago. A tearful Veronika apologises and hands Charlie the diamond, then walks away a few paces, turns and shoots him. As Charlie lays on the ground seemingly dead, she motions to take the diamond, but as she does so, Charlie moves, rises to his feet uninjured, revealing a bullet caught in his teeth. Veronika attempts to shoot again, only to discover that she was firing blanks. The vault walls open, revealing that Veronika is actually on the Horsemen stage with a live audience back at the Yas Marina Circuit. It is revealed that the car Veronika got in was driven by Charlie, the security guard whom she took the gun from was Bosco, the car went into the rear of a truck driven by June, and that the elevator ride in the vault was actually the Horsemen rolling a box onto the stage. 

Charlie tells the gathered audience that he in fact orchestrated and planned every aspect of the heist, including bringing the Horsemen together in the first place. He also admits that he created every clue to exact revenge on Veronika, ultimately leading to her arrest. Charlie tells the crowd that every client of the Vanderberg company involved in its illegal activities will be arrested, and that the proceeds of the diamond mining and the Heart itself will be given back to the people of South Africa. Some time later, the Horsemen gather at Charlie, June, and Bosco's hideout. A package arrives at the door containing a hologram of Dylan, having faked his imprisonment, who officially inducts Charlie, Bosco, and June to the Eye, and tells the group that there is more to be done. 

You really have to go in to this film having suspended all belief in the magicians art, and by that I mean the ability to pull of such intricate heists, misdirections, and illusions in just a matter of a couple of days as is the case here, in what would otherwise take months for any other self respecting magician to pull off with such aplomb. And, who's funding these guys that they can afford to pull of these amazing feats, and travel from France to the UAE in a private Lear Jet. That said, 'Now You See Me : Now You Don't' is an enjoyable and entertaining enough romp back into the world of the Four Horsemen, that is made memorable by the strong cast, in which it is good to see three new young fresh faces join The Horsemen so paving the way for more of them in instalment #4. However, the film is let down by the heavy reliance on CGI spectacle, and a silly and convoluted plot that has so much going on on screen that you need to really lean into it to keep track. You can leave your brain at the front door of your local cinema, and just go along for the ride and be entertained for a couple of hours.

'Now You See Me : Now You Don't' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-