Now You See Me

The title is a tease, and a not very clever one at that. It seems apt enough at first, what with a story involving magicians, high-stakes sleight-of-hand, bank robbery as Vegas-style entertainment, and assorted now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t shenanigans. Publicity for Now You See Me makes much of the bank-robbing-magicians angle, but that’s really only the most conspicuous hook in a gratuitously convoluted (and ultimately fatuous) plot. The story does have a quartet of mostly young magicians pulling off a series of spectacular escapades, and those tricks and capers provide the occasion for some big but not particularly impressive scenes. But much of the rest of the film is a rather whimsical war of attrition among increasingly absurd plot points involving a half-dozen other characters. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13.