Who goes to the cinema to watch this at1210 on a Tuesday? Turns out it's pretty much only me, while I had a two-hour wait for my bike to be fixed. This was the only film starting at roughly the right time, though I had to leave five minutes before the end to collect the kids from school.
I quite enjoyed the first film, which was apparently the surprise hit of 2013. However, I have the same issues with this new third film as I did with the first film (not seen Now You See Me 2, 2016). The problem is that magic that might be impressive live is simply not impressive on film. It's very easy to make someone disappear - you start filming them, then stop filming, get them to move out the way, and start filming again and they've gone.
To be impressive then the film has to play more clever tricks on the audience, which it succeeded in doing once or twice. The final reveal is a good one, though with a bit of thought it renders all the previous action irrelevant.
As the film begins with a new set of magicians, who are young and woke which the film admits makes them quite annoying, there is a great opportunity for the surprising return of the original four characters. The best reveal is after the youngsters go back to their apartment, briefly discussing how secret it is, and one of them casually asks "Who wants a beer?". Eisenberg pops up from behind a holo-screen and says something cheesy like "I'll take one!" and they don't realise at first it's really him and not another projection. The other characters are reintroduced with hardly a mention, and by the end the action is rather crowded. It's a bit like the later Police Academy movies.
What I did very much enjoy was Rosamund Pike's villain. The South African accent must be a lot of fun, and she really goes for it. I was rooting for her against the inflated gang of smug musicians, though the rest of the cinema didn't seem to agree with me, as to my surprise they both clapped when she got her comeuppance.
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