Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU DON’T (2025)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman, Lizzy Caplan, Dominic Allburn, Lyssandra Skye Arias, Myah Banton, Henry Fisher, Sebastian Hansen, Bobby Holland Hanton, Tom Johnson, Mali McEwan, Thabang Molaba, Nick Wittman, Daniel Radcliffe and Mark Ruffalo.

Screenplay by Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Seth Grahame-Smith.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

Distributed by Lionsgate. 112 minutes. Rated PG-13.

The Now You See Me series has done something of a disappearing act over the last decade.

The original Now You See Me movie from 2013 was about a renegade troupe of magicians called The Four Horseman (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher) who use high-tech glitz and trickery to repatriate wealth from evil mega-corporations and give the money back to the people. It was a terrific crowd-pleasing Robin Hood tale, featuring sleight of hand and impossible illusions. The 2016 sequel – in which Lizzy Caplan replaced Fisher as the female horseman – was fun, and done a lot bigger, but not quite as good as the original.

Knowing the entertainer’s creed to always keep the people wanting more, the Now You See Me movie series then went poof for nine years.

I’m not going to lie. I really enjoyed the original film and kind of liked the second, but I didn’t really realize how much I missed the series until I was plopped back into the Horsemen’s world all these years later with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. It is not an important, thoughtful movie, but it is a lot of fun, and that’s really all the series has ever aimed for.

All five of the original Horsemen are here – Fisher’s character is back through most of the film and Caplan eventually shows up too. (Although, strangely, she does not appear to be credited. Is this sleight of hand?) We also are introduced to a new generation of Horsemen, played by Justice Smith (from I Saw the TV Glow), Dominick Sessa (from The Holdovers) and Ariana Greenblatt (from Barbie).

In fact, it is these kids that sort of bring the magic outlaws back together. Very specifically, they start doing a series of stunts and tricks which claim to be the reunited Horsemen, mostly using holographic AI trickery to recreate the Horsemen’s parts of the tricks.

Of course, when the Horsemen find out that someone is doing their act and pretending to be them, they become determined to track them down (which happens surprisingly easily, because of… magic?) and find out what the deal is.

More importantly, the Eye – the shadowy magical cabal that was in the background in the first two films – determines it wants the original Horsemen to get back together to steal the world’s largest diamond from the head of an international jewelry business which has used shady dealings and blood diamonds to make their fortune for decades. (Rosamund Pike, who plays the head of the company, always makes for a fun villainess.)

And that’s it mainly, story-wise, but it sets off a series of illusions and tricks which are still undoubtedly entertaining, even when you know that the magician has cards up his (or her) sleeve.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t isn’t going to change anyone’s life, or be thought of at Oscar time, but it is a fun piece of cinematic Derring do, always using deception and misdirection (and camera tricks) to con the audience into believing that the hand is quicker than the eye. 

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t ends with a very blatant setup for yet another sequel, so it probably won’t be another decade before we see this series again. And I’ve got to admit, that kind of makes me happy. I hope they can keep conjuring up some fascinating rabbits from their hats. 

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: November 13, 2025.