Films for Thoughts on Thursday: Now You See Me

This is a weekly meme that I am hosting here at Reviews from a Bookworm. I own over 500 books, I'mn a book blogger so it's kind of obvious that I love books. But the one thing I own more of than books is DVDs, I love movies, TV shows, musicals. So I think it's time to include a weekly movie review on the blog. To take part all you have to do is share a movie review once a week, link back to Reviews from a Bookworm and add your link to the linky tool.


This weeks movie review will be for:


Now You See Me

This was my second time watching this film and I really wanted to review it for the blog. Amanda at Book Badger had mentioned it and asked if I was planning to review it. So when I saw it on DVD for cheap it seemed like the best time to pick it up. I think it's a really interesting movie and I like it for a lot of reasons. I do have a few issues with the film, but for the most part I find it very entertaining and enjoy the story.

The story revolves around four street magicians who are brought together one day by an unknown benefactor who gifts to them blueprints for different, incredible magic tricks. The magicians are J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) who specialises in illusions and street magic (card tricks and the such), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) who's a hypnotist, Henley Reeves (Isla Fischer) who was a magicians assistant and now works as an escapist, and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) who I found really cool as he can mimic voices, pick locks, pickpocket, do sleight of hand magic tricks and a ton of other stuff.

The start of the film introduces you to the individual characters as we see them brought together. It then skips ahead a year and we find that they are performing together as a group act, known as The Four Horseman. They're performing a show in Vegas when they seemingly transport a member of the audience to his bank in France and have him steal a large sum of money from the bank vault and transport it back to the audience in Vegas. It sounds unbelievable but then it becomes apparent that the money has in fact gone missing from the French bank and the calling card they gave the audience member is found on the floor of the French bank vault. This is when the FBI gets involved and the movie becomes a game of cat & mouse between the magicians and the FBI. The tricks escalate and the chase gets more intense, coming to a big finale with a twist at the end. 

I pretty much loved the main storyline and the magic tricks were impressive. That's easy to do because it's a movie so they can get away with doing a lot using CGI. So quite a few of the tricks seem completely unbelievable and only possible because this is a movie. But, some of them do actually get explanations which make sense and are really great. It's those big reveals that you are waiting for, you want to know how the trick is done. Isn't it the same with all magic tricks? It's the question everyone asks, how is it done. So it is nice when we get an explanation for some of the big tricks and they actually make sense, as far as the movie is concerned. But then other tricks, the floating in a bubble, the jumping off a building and turning into money isn't ever explained. That gets a little frustrating at times. 

I really liked the characters of the magicians. They all had their own personalities and I enjoyed the jokes and banter between them all. I'd seen Dave Franco in interviews for the movie and found him to be absolutely hilarious so was looking forward to seeing him in the film. But, sadly, because he is the lesser known of the four actors we really don't get to see too much of him. Woody Harrelson is really hilarious in this film though, he is in most things, and I really loved his character. His character completely winds up Eisenberg's character Daniel and it's a lot of fun to watch. They have so much good back and forth between them and they're work so well together; it makes me want to go watch Zombieland! 

You won't believe him when he's angry!

This film sees Mark Ruffalo take on the role of the FBI agent in charge of the investigation. I really love Mark Ruffalo but he just wasn't very believable as the FBI guy. He does this weird serious face all the time and it just doesn't work on him; he plays the Hulk for gods sake so you'd think he could do angry well. But I just didn't find him very believable at all. 

I think the pacing of the movie is perfect though, it never stalls or slows down. It's constantly full of action and scenes that keep you invested and interested. You want to get to the end and what you know is going to be some kind of big reveal. But, in my opinion, the main plot twist just left me with a lot of unanswered questions and I didn't really get it. I didn't really get what the whole point of it all was. I feel like they kind of leave it open so there is a chance at a sequel, but a movie like this doesn't really require a sequel. In all honesty, if there was a sequel, I definitely would watch it so I could see more of these characters.

6/10 Butterflies

This has some brilliant characters that I adore. The story moves along really quickly and it doesn't slow down, your never bored whilst watching it. The tricks that are explained make sense and I enjoyed finding out how the magicians did them. But, I hated all the tricks that were clearly just CGI and never explained to us. The end twist just didn't really work for me, I didn't get the whole point of it if I am completely honest. Overall, it's a great film but not an amazing piece of cinema. 

I have been meaning to take part in both of the following memes for a while now, so its nice to finally be able to get to them. I will be taking part in Reading is Fun Again's Thoughtful Thursday and Okay, Let's Read's  Thursday Thoughts, picking between them or doing both topics each week.

Protagonists

Do you prefer a male or female protagonist? Does the authors gender matter?

In all honesty, I think I am happy with either male or female perspectives. I read a lot of young adult and feel like most of the narrators are female at the minute. It would be quite nice to get more guy protagonists. I am quite a fan of dual narratives, especially in love interests because I love being able to get inside both characters heads. It's one of the endless reasons that I adore the Under the Never Sky series, it was really brilliant to get both Aria and Perry's POV and I think it worked really well. The gender of the author does not bother me, I just like a good book so I don't care whether it's written by a man or a woman. I feel like a maybe a woman author can't completely understand or show how a guy would feel and vice versa with a male author and female character. But, I have never noticed that and I feel like a good author can get inside the mind of any character and make it seem real. 

EReaders

Do you use an eReader? Do you prefer eReaders or physical books? Do you think it is wise to invest in an eReader? If you could only read physical or ebooks for the rest of your life which would you choose and why?

Brilliant questions. I do have an eReader and I find it really useful, but I only really use it for eARCs. I don't buy many ebooks myself if I am honest. I prefer physical books, always have and always will. I love having the physical book on my bookshelf, I love being able to look at the cover. I love the feel of physical books, the weight of them and actually being able to see how far through the book I am. A percentage is good but I definitely prefer being able to see it in the pages that are remaining. Ereaders are a good investment for some, they're perfect for when you are going on holiday and don't want to pack twenty books. But, I will always prefer my physical books. If I love an eARC I got then I will always buy myself the physical book.

If I could only read one or the other, the answer is easy, I'd pick physical books in a heartbeat. I think if we all just started reading ebooks then what would happen to book stores and libraries. I think it's really important for people to support libraries and bookstores and still purchase physical books. I know that if I have to pick between an ebook or a phsyical book then I will be picking the physical book. 

What about you guys, do you prefer male of female protags? Do you think the gender of the author really matters? And ebooks or physical books? 

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