Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) Movie Review: A smug follow-up that brings the gang back together for bland, lazy thrills

Magic works if you can’t see things coming. If the trick is about making the obvious disappear, reappear, and then disappear again, chances are one of your guesses as an audience member will hit the bull’s eye. As dumb as the 2013 Louis Leterrier’s “Now You See Me” might feel in 2025, the film used the charisma of its stars to amp up the unpredictability. The writing was crisp when needed, making the tricks and twists leave you with a genuine “What the..” The Gen-Z coded, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” on the other hand, is the magic equivalent of an internet meme that has appeared on your feed for the nth time, and all you actually do is sigh and move on. 

As a sequel, Ruben Fleischer’s “Now You See Me 3” has all the cards decked up in line. He is able to bring the entire band back together (including a few super-lazy cameos). Adding to the element of nostalgia, with a dash of newness, is the new cast of young actors – Bosco (played by “The Holdovers” breakout Dominic Sessa) is the J. Daniel Atlas equivalent of the trio of magicians that consists of June (Ariana Greenblatt) – master unlocker and rookie mimic and Charlie (Justice Smith) – magic nerd who is the behind-the-scenes guy and the main brains. 

The new collides with the old when Atlas shows up at one of the trio’s larger-than-life showcases, where they bankrupt a crypto-bro and distribute his wealth among the audience. He is apparently sent there by “The Eye” – the shadowy organization that has been secretly instructing the Horsemen to do greater good with their illusions. The only downside is, the Four Horsemen have now disbanded and are living their lives as lay(wo)men. And of course, the plot conjures them all up into the same place with a singular objective – bring down Veronika Vanderberg (played by Rosmund Pike with a godawful South African accent), a diamond tycoon whose entire business is built upon money funneled in and for War Criminals; with supposed connections to Nazis? 

The film thus begins its back and forth between the newly branded Horsemen and the kids who look up to them, going against Pike’s Veronika, who has one of the rarest diamonds that she is about to showcase to the public. But wait, you don’t get to the heist point of it all this easily. The writing team of Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick, and Rhett Reese designs a web of nonsensical set pieces – mostly done by CGI instead of neat trickery like the first two films- and pads the screenplay with numerous detours that keep breaking the chain of the swiftly cut storytelling technique used in the first two films.

I don’t expect these characters to be anything more than caricatures, but the chemistry, even between the old band, feels so cliched and bland that there isn’t much you would enjoy here. Moreover, the snarky, cool digs that Eisenberg’s Atlas was known for are close-cut with one-upship from the new band – making the film’s usual sense of humor feel so far removed from the universe it is set in that you are unable to relate to anything here. Which brings me to the conclusion that ironically, the film only exists because the stars wanted a big fat check, beating the purpose of the steal-from-the-rich and distribute-to-the-poor version that the film so readily sells. 

Read More: Is There a ‘Now You See Me 3’ (2025) End-Credits Scene? Should You Stay After the Movie?

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) Movie Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Rosamund Pike, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Morgan Freeman

Where to watch Now You See Me: Now You Don't