“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” - Pick a card. No, not that card.

Prior to the screening of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, we were treated to an in-person magic act in our theater. And by treated, I mean inflicted with. It was very, very not good. The act opened with a coin-flipping “trick” where we could clearly see the magician turning the coin in his hand post-flip to get the desired result. The act concluded with a cheap calculator trick that didn’t even have the decency to end with a punchline of ‘hello’ or ‘boobies.’ It was the kind of bad where the “highlight” was a kid yelling out six-seven-six-seven when asked for a four-digit number. It was the kind of bad that explains why this particular individual was opening for a free movie screening instead for something more prestigious, like a kid’s birthday party...or a prison event. It was the kind of bad that might trick the audience into thinking a bad movie is better than it really is. Now that I think about it, that would be a neat trick because Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is also very, very not good.

It’s been nearly a decade since 2016’s Now You See Me 2 and Now You Don’t acknowledges that span of time. The Four Horsemen have long since broken up as an illusionist group and appear to have also abandoned their membership in the secret vigilante magician society called The Eye. Filling the void left by the Horsemen is a trio of young copycats - Charlie (Justice Smith), June (Ariana Greenblatt) and Bosco (Dominic Sessa). After masquerading as the Four Horseman and robbing some crypto meme coin bros, actual Horseman Danny (Jesse Eisenberg) confronts them at their secret hideout, berates their clumsiness, then asks them to join him in a heist after revealing he received a tarot card message from The Eye.

The target of the heist is a gigantic diamond owned by Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike). Veronika is the head of a mining company that is also a front for an international crime syndicate. The plan is to steal the diamond so they can use it as collateral to take down the syndicate. But because this is a heist movie filled with witches and warlocks - and because we also saw the last two movies - we know there will be a twist where someone has a hidden agenda somehow linked to Veronika’s past.

During and after that initial diamond heist attempt, the rest of the Horsemen show up. And I do mean all of them. Merritt (Woody Harrelson), Jack (Dave Franco), Henley (Isla Fisher), and Lula (Lizzy Caplan) all return. Even Thaddeus (Morgan Freeman) returns, which made me remember how much I hated that Now You See Me 2 retconned Thaddeus to be a good guy.

This is where the movie basically turns to garbage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still kind of entertaining in the same way that the Jurassic World movies are entertaining. It delivers the thing that is promised - more heist. And who doesn’t love a good heist? It also delivers a fairly fun action scene in a mansion that one part Winchester Mystery House and three parts state fair funhouse.

The problem is the magic element is all but gone from the heist. Even worse is that the Horsemen are practically useless because they barely use their skills for the entire film. There is almost no sleight of hand, no hypnotizing, no escape artistry, and only a few token card flings. Instead, they rely on dopey disguises, car theft, car chases, some very mediocre parkour, and another gag where they trick someone into thinking they’re somewhere they’re actually not. Oh, and lots and lots (and lots) of explaining things. At this point, they are far closer to being Ocean’s Seven than David Blaine.

What there was plenty of was actors mailing in their performances or exaggerating them to the point of maybe sabotaging the movie. Harrelson, Franco, and Fisher gave a minimum effort to their equally minimized characters (though, after watching Franco in Regretting You, he might have been giving his all). On the flipside, Pike’s performance was an over-the-top cringefest, complete with a South African accent so bad it’s best described as what if Foghorn Leghorn went apartheid.

The movie ends by very bluntly stating that there will be a fourth installment in the franchise, but it definitely doesn’t deserve one. All of the intrigue, charm, enjoyability, and yes, magic, of the initial movie was squandered in the sequel and stomped all over in this film. It’s the kind of movie that deserves to be opened by a magician struggling to reach the lofty title of dime-store magician.

Rating: Ask for all your money back and flip a coin to that magician.