YMMV / Now You See Me

• Ass Pull: Dylan being the Fifth Horseman had little to no foreshadowing.
• Awesome Ego: You could make a case of this for most of the characters, particularly the Four Horsemen and Bradley. They're all arrogant blowhards, but the former are so magnificent with the heists and tricks they pull off, and the latter with how he is able to brilliantly dissect their heists better than the law could ever hope, that it's easy to see why. Then it turns that Bradley is not quite as slick as he thinks, while Dylan Rhodes is the most awesome one of all.
  • The sequel makes it clear that his ego is very much justified, seeing as he hid being the Big Good for so long. It's also likely an act, seeing as he's very humble when he reveals himself to Rhodes.
• Broken Base: Whether or not Thaddeus Bradley deserved his eventual fate is subject to discussion.
• Critical Dissonance: Rated "Rotten" at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes but the "regular" folks at Cinema Score rate it an A-. The film's strong week-to-week holds also indicated terrific word-of-mouth from audiences.
• Designated Hero: Seriously, in many other movies, Dylan would be the villain, and the Horsemen his pawns. In this movie...that's still sort of the case. There just isn't any hero character to stop him. At least one trick — the car chase — could easily have gotten a lot of innocent people killed.
• Designated Villain: Probably an issue that bothers many people who have seen the film.
  • Thaddeus Bradley did nothing illegal and nothing more immoral than expose Lionel Shrike's magic tricks. Of all the people responsible for Shrike's death and his family never receiving the life insurance they were owed, he's the least responsible, yet undeniably gets punished the worst for it.
  • Even Tressler Insurance and the company that made the safe are in the clear. While it's implied that Tressler is a Jerkass and has cheated people before, this is never actually shown, and is actually irrelevant to the story because the Fifth Horsemen only cares about one case: The former refused to pay money out because the guy in question...performed an extremely dangerous magic trick that predictably got him killed- granted, not his family's fault, but insurance isn't meant to cover nigh-suicidal behaviour; with the latter the worst they did was cut corners and use sub-par materials, but once again, you are not supposed to lock yourself in safes in the first place, and they are designed to not be opened easily.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Atlas's behavior makes it easy to interpret him as autistic, what with his Control Freak tendencies, and occasional No Social Skills - which is Truth in Television, as how well an autistic person can handle social situations will vary wildly based on their mood, who they're talking to, or how important they find the situation. He's smooth in performances, having likely already scripted everything he's saying and doing, and comes off as slightly more stilted and awkward when in private, with people he's trying to talk to instead of manipulate.
• Epileptic Trees: There is no Eye, and the movie ends with Dylan about to murder the other Horsemen because they have outlived their usefulness. Dylan is just a Secretly Wealthy mastermind with a grudge, not a member of an elaborate ancient organization.
• Fan Nickname: "Men of Steal"
• Like You Would Really Do It: Given that this is a movie about illusionists, most first-time viewers could easily guess that Jack was Faking the Dead.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• Memetic Mutation: "We will always be one step, three steps, seven steps ahead of you".
• Narm: It only become apparent on replays, but the final scene between Dylan and Bradley may become a lot sillier when you realise that as Bradley is desperately trying to work out the Horsemen's trick to save himself from life imprisonment (while standing with his back to Dylan), Dylan is squeezing himself between the cell's bars in order to make his big reveal as the Fifth Horseman.
• Retroactive Recognition: Tressler's young wife is played by Caitríona Balfe, a year before her breakout role in the TV series Outlander.
• Special Effect Failure
  • The piranha trick in the beginning by Henley has some pretty fake looking piranhas there. According to the "Making of" feature, they originally used real piranha, but found that they didn't show up in the shots.
  • During the same scene, if you look closely at how Henley is opening the locks on her chains, you can see that she's not actually picking them: the actress is just mimicking the gestures. While Isla Fisher sells it beautifully, the pretense is painfully obvious in closer shots.
  • During some of the revolving shots in the Four Horsemen's first magic act, you can see that parts of the crowd are CGI generated. According to the "Making of", some were blow-up dolls.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The premise of a thief who uses magic tricks to perform heists makes it one for Magic Kaito, a manga best known for having its protagonist be a Transplant in Case Closed.

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