(Clockwise from bottom) Dave Franco, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, and Woody Harrelson (Barry Wetcher, SMPSP/Summit Entertainment)

“Why?! Why?!” screams Morgan Freeman and you, the viewer, at Louis Leterrier’s magical heist movie, Now You See Me. That’s magical as in magicians, not in the movie magic sorely lacking here. Freeman channels Nancy Kerrigan at a crucial moment in this ludicrous film, but his injury is not a simple pipe to the kneecaps. It is a plot contrivance of sheer ridiculousness that I wish I could warn the viewer about, if only it weren’t for you meddling publicists kids.

The filmmakers assembled a talented cast for this quasi-blockbuster. In terms of filmmaking craft, it’s generally competent, but its cringeworthy motivations soil a promising concept. It could have been an opportunity for invention and thrills that did not make it to the big screen, but simply vanished up a producer’s sleeve or tax write-off.

The movie begins harmlessly enough, in the vein of many a heist movie. Leterrier introduces the principals as they exercise their illusory trade: the elaborate card trick of J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg); the shakedown mentalism of Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson); the daring escape from flesh-eating piranhas staged by Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher); and the pickpocket hustle of Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). A pre-credit sequence neatly establishes the ensemble’s specialties, as well as a patriarchal tendency to put only the woman at risk of physical danger.

Mark Ruffalo and Morgan Freeman (Barry Wetcher, SMPSP/Summit Entertainment)

These independent, sleight-of-handy performers are invited to join forces for a spectacular Paris bank heist seemingly pulled off from the stage of their Las Vegas show (which, frankly, would barely pass for Branson), seemingly at the behest of bankrolling insurance magnate overseer Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine). But all is not what it seems!

There’s a basic problem with making a movie about magic. In a live magic performance, there is you-are-there tension that sleight of hand can know what card we picked or hide a bunny. But at the movies, illusion is the main course. Look at me ma! I’m disappearing in a movie! This could have been a rich reflexive commentary on the deceptions of cinema. The script helpfully outlines the magician’s strategy of distraction, which could have made a neat metaphor for consumerism and politics. And there’s faint smell of the Occupy movement hanging over the proceedings. These resonances are left as exercises for the increasingly bored viewer to ponder.

The screenwriting team of Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt have some good mindless entertainments under their collective belts, from Yakin’s guilty pleasure Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights to Solomon’s Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It’s too bad the silly plotting and bombastic soundtrack overpower the fun. The ensemble cast plays their parts well, but there comes a point where even Morgan Freeman, as a former magician who lives to debunk magician’s tricks, can’t take the script seriously anymore. Mark Ruffalo, as FBI agent Dylan Rhodes, holds off longer than others only because he’s saddled with A Tragic Secret. Now You See Me may resonate for audiences incensed by the poor standards maintained by safe manufacturers, but the rest of us will see the backs of our eyelids.

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Now You See Me

Directed by Louis Leterrier
Written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt
With Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine
Rated PG-13 for language, some action and sexual content
Running time 116 minutes