N - Now You See Me

Now You See Me is a film based around four illusionists called the four horsemen. The film begins with the audience seeing each of the solo illusionists - Daniel Atlas, Merritt McKinney, Henley Reeves and Jack Wilder - performing, this is so you can see and understand each of their individual talents. After they each find a mysterious Tarot card sent by a unknown benefactor they are directed into meeting each other, and a year later we see them performing in a sold out arena in Las Vegas, with insurance magnate Arthur Tressler, as their Financial Benefactor. However, this is no ordinary magic show, and we soon discover their shows are based around draining the bank accounts of the corrupt and giving the money to audience members, who were the unsuspecting victims of denied insurance claims. The story also follows the federal agents and Interpol detective, who are trying to find evidence to catch the Four Horsemen before their next trick. To help themselves understand the illusionists tricks, they turn to Thaddeus Bradley, who is famous for exposing magicians and their tricks.

Now You See Me is one of my favourite films, I find magic tricks really fascinating so when I first saw the trailer for this film I couldn't contain my excitement. The film keeps the identity of the unknown benefactor secret till the very end of the film, even the characters don't know who was the mind behind everything surrounding the Four Horsemen, so when it's revealed at the end of the film it's quite a big shock for the audience. The complex plot does mean you have to concentrate quite a lot on the film otherwise you miss important parts; I was still clicking some of the pieces together when I was watching it for a fourth/fifth time. I think you need to watch it at least twice as once you know the identity of the mysterious benefactor your outlook on the film changes as you can understand more of the plot, with this knowledge.

Three years after the first film was released, they're finally releasing the sequel to Now You See Me later this year. The plot once again follows the story of the four horsemen, however this time, instead of being the criminals, they must perform a unprecedented stunt in order to clear their names and expose tech magnate, Walter Mabry. However, in this film one of the horsemen have been replaced. Instead of Isla Fisher playing Henley Reeves, due to her pregnancy, Lizzy Caplan was cast as new character Lula to replace her as the fourth horseman. However, I am unsure on the switch up, and whether the story and the characters personalities are going to fit around the reasoning why Henley is absent and Lula is there instead - I guess we'll just have to find out in June.

Now You See Me is currently avaliable on DVD and Blu-Ray and Now You See Me: The Second Act  is released on 10th June in the UK. You can watch the trailer here.

What's your favourite film?

"The closer you look, the less you'll actually see"

Until Monday,

Alice x

Continue Reading...

The Maze Runner Series

Ok, so I watched and read the Maze Runner back in September/October time - so it hasn't exactly been recently that I became a fan of this series - but, the plot of the stories seriously kept me interested and absorbed.

I'll start by writing about the books. I came across the series after I found out that Dylan 
O'Brien, was playing the lead role as Thomas in the film. (O'Brien also stars as Stiles Stilinski in the American TV show Teen Wolf, this is where I first came across him.) Now, James Dashner, the American writer of the series released the first Maze Runner book back in 2009, following this he also released 'The Scorch Trials' in October 2010 and to finish the series 'The Death Cure' in October 2011. These three books are all continuous from each other, they continue the story of Thomas, Minho, Newt, Gally, Teresa, Winston and all of the other guys, as well as introducing new characters along the way. I'm not the biggest reader ever, and a book or story have to have an interesting plot to keep be captivated, however, although James Dashner isn't the best writer I've ever come across, the plot and the emotional attachment you get to these characters makes up for the average writing. The story follows Thomas, from when he first enters the maze, when he's fitting in with the rest of the guys who live maze, when he's trying to convince them to escape, when Teresa arrives, and to when they escape. The story is fast paced, unusual and completely different to any other franchise at the moment, but I think that's what makes it so interesting. Dashner has also written a prequel to the maze runner 'The Kill Order', now I did purchase this book, however, although I am intrigued to find out what happened before the maze was created, I have yet to read the book. This was mostly because it is basically a completely  separate series. I have read prequels in the past, however I have struggled to pick up this book and read it, just because the characters are completely different and I have become use to reading about Thomas and his friends. I know once I actually get the motivation to pick up the book and read it, I will most likely enjoy it, it's just getting use to the change in characters.  

---

Right, onto the film. The Maze Runner was released in October 2014 (UK) and directed by Wes Ball, a new and upcoming Director. The Maze Runner was the first film Ball has ever directed, however you wouldn't be able to tell because the structure and setting of the film is absolutely amazing. The plot obviously slightly differs from the books, like all films do, but most of the changes were necessary. For example, in the books Teresa and Thomas can communicate through their minds, now although this was a major feature of the book, it was unrealistic to put it into the film, so it was decided the connection between the two characters would be shown another way, this was done by Teresa and Thomas recognizing each other even though all of their memories had been wiped (well, it is a little bit more complicated than that but you need to watch the film to understand that). The casting for the film was also completely spot on (ok I may be a little bit biased because Dylan O'Brien but sh). The characters are exactly how I imagined them to be in the book - Newt being played by Thomas Brodie-Sangaster (who also starred in Nanny McPhee as Simon Brown), is portrayed as a tall, square jawed, blonde haired, teenager. Sangaster is a British actor and because of his characters repeated use of the british-curse 'Bloody', he was allowed to keep his British accent  whilst filming for the maze runner. Gally, portrayed by Will Poulter, was the main character in the book and film who didn't get along with Thomas, Gally is a tough looking guy, who is very serious and has a hard accent, he mainly didn't like Thomas because of his determination to escape the maze. This was the type of cast I expected, they almost meet the descriptions of the characters in the book to a point, and they portray the people that were written about exceptionally well. All of the actors in the film are young but really, really talented.

The only thing that irritates me about the Franchise films at the moment is the fact that they're all getting pushed aside because of the Hunger Games. Don't get me wrong, the hunger games is an absolutely phenomenal series and I am massive fan of it, however new and upcoming franchise series keep getting ignored or knocked out of the way by the British community because of it. The Maze Runner still did amazingly well and was recognized,  however, cinemas don't seem to understand that they can recognize more than one franchise series at once, the same happened when the Harry Potter films were being released, all other big sequels were knocked aside by cinemas. This is a massive downfall for these companies because younger people such as myself, enjoy hearing about and watching lots of ongoing sequels at once.   

"If you ain't scared you ain't human" 

The Maze Runner film was on DVD on the 16th December 2014 in the USA and is released on DVD on the 9th February 2015 in the UK - Make sure you check it out! 

Until next time,

Alice x 

Continue Reading...