This is one of those movies that seems like the director thinks you're a dumb.

The film opens with four quick character introductions of "street" magicians. Daniel (Jesse Eisenberg) uses street magic to meet pretty women. His former assistant Henley (Isla "Legs" Fisher) does a stage act. McKinney (Woody Harrelson) is a hypnotist who uses his ability to shake down people. Jack (Dave Franco) uses his slight of hand to pick pocket people.

The four are summoned by Tarot cards (Lover, High Priestess, The Fool, and Death) to a common location. After the credits they become the world's greatest stage magicians while performing crime. They are followed by FBI Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent). Meanwhile Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) is exposing their seemingly impossible tricks on the Internet.

The film keeps you interested as to their next trick. The movie drops clues as to what is going on, but again there is the classic misdirection here too. It is s fun popcorn action film filled with mystery, drama, action, and humor.

Parental Guide: One f-bomb. no sex, or nudity. Some sex discussion. Woman in bra.

A team of Las Vegas illusionists called The Four Horsemen pull off a series of spectacular heists, donating their ill-gotten gains to their needy audiences.

I cannot say that I wasn't entertained to some degree by Now You See Me's sheer preposterousness: I find it hard to completely hate unabashed nonsense on such a grand scale. Clearly, the film's greatest trick was getting the green-light in the first place. I'd like to know how they did that!

Ridiculous plot twists abound, countless scenes are left unexplained, and characters conveniently behave exactly as the convoluted plot demands. It's all so far-fetched, and yet played with such seriousness, I was sure there would be an incredibly clever and hugely satisfying pay-off that would make it all worthwhile. Sadly, director Louis Leterrier fails to pull the rug from under the viewer's feet with a mind-blowingly brilliant ending. What he actually delivers is even more ludicrous than all that has gone before. And that takes some doing.