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47 Questions About ‘Now You See Me’

Warning: This article contains spoilers for “Now You See Me.”

“Now You See Me” had a fairly respectable opening weekend at the box office. The “Las Vegas magicians pull off some bank heists” movie scrounged up $28.2 million for the No. 2 spot (behind, naturally, “Fast & Furious 6,” because cars are cooler than magicians, you guys). It’s not surprising – people love to be fooled by “magic,” and they also like bank heist movies, so “Now You See Me” seemed like the perfect combination.

The thing about “Now You See Me” is that it’s a fun popcorn movie that is completely enjoyable – as long as you don’t think too hard about the ending. Or, really, as long as you don’t think about it at all.

Once you do start thinking about it, though, there are a few questions that might come up.

Who are the main characters of this movie? At first it seems like Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fischer, and Dave Franco are the leads, but then they’re off screen for, like, half an hour while Mark Ruffalo and French Lady lead the police on a wild goose chase.

The magicians show up to a dilapidated apartment and find a magical holographic plan for a series of magic shows that involve actually robbing millions of dollars, and they don’t have a problem with this?

Why was the plan a hologram in the first place? Do they have to set off dry ice every single time they need to check a detail? Their “mysterious benefactor” (more on that later) couldn’t have just put that on a flash drive?

Were Jesse Eisenberg and Isla Fischer supposed to end up together? Why was that plot point hinted at and then discarded?

Why did they call themselves the “Four Horsemen”? I mean, I get the reference; it’s just a stupid name.

Why did French Lady (yes, I know the actress is Melanie Laurent, but I’m just calling her “French Lady”) push so hard to make this her first case? The movie made it seem like there was some deep secret of hers to be revealed, but it just turns out she thinks magic is neat.

Does French Lady actually think magic is real?

Did the New Orleans audience actually get to keep any of Michael Caine’s money? Wouldn’t the police make them give it back?

Who came up with the idea of having Dave Franco fend off Mark Ruffalo by whipping playing cards at him? Why wasn’t that person fired?

How many run-throughs of the various car chases and other shenanigans did the magicians have to do? How could they predict traffic so well?

Are morgues really that easy to break into? Could I just go steal a corpse right now if I wanted to? (I don’t want to.)

Did the FBI agents really not walk far enough into the safe room to see that there was a giant mirror in place?

Why wouldn’t the FBI have left at least one guy behind? Don’t they have to write incident reports at some point?

Is The Eye just a social club of really good magicians? What do they do? Are they really not allowed to make money off of their skills? What is the benefit of being in this club?

Where is The Eye? Is it, like, an underground city? Do they just ride carousels all the time?

Why would the magicians even want to join this club? At the end they’re all fugitives (and Dave Franco is officially declared dead), and they can no longer use their magic skills for monetary gain. Why would any of them agree to this?

Do they have any marketable skills beyond magic? What are they going to do with their lives? Are they all homeless now?

Once Mark Ruffalo reveals himself to be the mysterious “Fifth Horseman,” did he just quit his job at the FBI? Did nobody bat an eye at this?

What is he going to do for money?

Was he so bent on revenge that he had no qualms about destroying the promising careers of four young magicians who had done nothing wrong?

If they’d gotten caught, would Mark Ruffalo just have gotten away with it? Would the magicians have had to spend years in jail for his crazy plan?

If he was secretly in on the plan all along, why did he threaten French Lady for hiding some secret from him? Keeping your cover is one thing; being a loud jerk to a perfectly nice woman is another.

What jail are they keeping Morgan Freeman in? The Shawshank dungeon?

How did Mark Ruffalo even get himself assigned to the case? What if they’d assigned the case to Common and made Ruffalo investigate something else?

What kind of future could Mark Ruffalo and French Lady possibly have together? Even if she says she’s not going to turn him in, she works at Interpol. Do they not implement occasional background checks into their agents’ personal lives?

What in the world made these people think that magic is interesting to watch when it’s not actually live?