The opening line of Louis Leterrier‘s Now You See Me warns “The closer you look, the less you’ll see.”  But it doesn’t matter how closely or carlessly you look because there’s not much worth seeing in the film.  For a movie that centers on magicians, the most spectacular thing about Now You See Me is how spectacularly it wastes both its premise and its cast.  Leterrier seems torn between wanting to provide cool magic tricks that could conceivably be performed in real life, and then he swings wildly to effects-laden set pieces.  The story also doesn’t seem to have much affinity towards magicians since it portrays them as smug and self-satisfied.  But the film’s most egregious trespass is taking an outstanding cast and forgetting to give them characters.  The movie should craft an intriguing illusion, but aside from some clever moments and Mark Ruffalo‘s performance, Now You See Me is a cheap trick.

Summit Entertainment has released eight character motion posters for Now You See Me.  I’ve enjoyed the posters for the film since they’re employing trippy optical illusions that fit in well with the plot about four magicians who use their tricks to rob banks.  This looks like a fun movie, and I hope it’s good because it would be a shame to waste a cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Melanie Laurent, and Morgan Freeman.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  Now You See Me opens May 31st.

We’ve got a few casting stories to share today.  Briefly:

• Michael Caine and Jennifer Garner have boarded the aging rock star film Imagine, joining Al Pacino, Annette Bening, and Bobby Cannavale in the cast.
• Samuel L. Jackson will play the President of the United States in the actioner Big Game.
• Jennifer Jason Leigh (Weeds), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), and Tom Noonan (Heat) will reprise their roles from the stage play version of Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa in the animated feature film adaptation, which Kaufman is co-directing.

Hit the jump for more on each of these projects.

With director Louis Leterrier’s (The Incredible Hulk) magician-centered thriller Now You See Me opening May 31st, Summit Entertainment has provided us with six clips.  For those unfamiliar, the story follows an FBI squad on the heels of a team of bank-robbing magicians who share their profits with the audience, and the pic boasts an impressive ensemble cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Melanie Laurent and Morgan Freeman. 

Hit the jump to watch the clips, and if you missed any of my set visit coverage, here’s my video blog recap, and on set interviews with Ruffalo, Eisenberg, Fisher, and Leterrier.

In a surprising turn of events, Michael Caine has joined a Christopher Nolan film.  After collaborating with the director on all three films of The Dark Knight trilogy, as well as the mind-bending Inception and the mystical The Prestige, Caine has joined Nolan’s sci-fi pic Interstellar.  This would be the sixth film on which the two have worked together, more than any of Nolan’s other frequent collaborators.  Now we’ll just have to wait and see if Christian Bale or Cillian Murphy pop up to stay in the hunt.  Hit the jump for more.

Summit Entertainment has released a new trailer for Now You See Me.  The story centers on a group of magicians who pull off bank heists during their death-defying acts, and the FBI squad tasked with catching them.  It appears that Morgan Freeman is tasked with being the expository character as he spends most of this new trailer explaining things, but we do get a closer look at the technical side of the group’s magic tricks in this clip.  The premise is admittedly a bit outlandish, but director Louis Letterier (The Incredible Hulk) has put together a great cast and this trailer hammers home the promise that Now You See Me should be a lot of fun.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Melanie Laurent.  Now You See Me opens May 31st.

The Muppet Christmas Carol marked a key transition in the life of its parent company, Jim Henson Productions.  It was the first movie released after Henson’s untimely death, and represents a radical departure from previous Muppet films. They based it on previously existing material, for starters, and the Muppets played specific characters rather than versions of themselves. It also featured a live performer (Michael Caine) front and center: a risky move since his costars have a tendency to upstage everyone. Despite those changes, the film itself holds up quite well, and its release on Blu-ray aptly demonstrates why. Hit the jump for my full review.

Just yesterday the first trailer for the magician-centered pic Now You See Me was released online, and now a large batch of images from the film have surfaced.  The movie follows an FBI squad on the heels of a team of bank-robbing magicians who share their profits with the audience.  Directed by Louis Letterier (Clash of the Titans), the film boasts an impressive ensemble cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine.  The trailer played a bit like a “fun” version of The Prestige with a dash of Ocean’s Eleven thrown in for good measure, and I’m interested to see what the full has in store.

Hit the jump to peruse the images.  The film also stars Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Common.  Now You See Me opens on June 7, 2013. [Update: We've been asked by the studio to take the images down as they were not part of an official release.]

The first trailer for Now You See Me has been released.  The film follows an FBI squad on the heels of a team of bank-robbing magicians who share their profits with the audience.  Sounds like Ocean’s Eleven with a magical twist, right? Well, the trailer shows that that’s certainly the case, but the “magic” tricks rely heavily on spectacle and computerized effects, throwing practicality right out the window. So it appears to be more of an action adventure flick with magical elements than any kind of head-scratcher; still could be fun though!

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  Directed by Louis Letterier (Clash of the Titans), the film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Melanie Laurent, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine.  Now You See Me opens on June 7, 2013.

As we move closer towards awards season, studios are busy finalizing which of their films to push in which categories in order to give them the best shot at winning.  Given that the Best Picture snub for The Dark Knight in 2008 is widely considered a large reason why the Academy subsequently expanded the category to a larger number of nominees, we knew Warner Bros. would be launching a campaign for The Dark Knight Rises.  Alas, the “For Your Consideration” campaign for Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy closer is off and running, and we’ve got a look at which categories WB is pulling for.  Hit the jump for more.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like my Batman movies to have Batman in them.  Writer-director Christopher Nolan has always had a peculiar relationship with the Dark Knight.  His approach was to set the character in a “realistic” world, or at least a world as real as one can get with a man in a rubber suit fighting crime.  Despite a seriously flawed third act, Batman Begins brought an interesting new take on the character by introducing an exploration of fear with regards to how it molded Bruce Wayne’s personality and became a weapon he used against his enemies.  However, The Dark Knight started to shift away from Batman, and instead placed the emphasis on the supporting cast, namely The Joker, Harvey Dent, and James Gordon.  The template felt bigger, the stakes were higher, and the canvas was grander, and yet Batman felt like he was competing to be a lead character in his own movie.  With The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan has closed out his Batman trilogy with an intense, epic, grand conclusion filled with terrific performances, exhilarating action, thoughtful ideas, and almost no room for the caped crusader.

It’s safe to assume that close to 99% of this site’s readership will be sitting in a theater late tomorrow night, preparing to finally see the closing chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.  Though we’re just one, long, excruciating day away from the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Bros. has released yet another batch of images from the film just in case you weren’t already doubly excited to see the film.  There’s nothing really revelatory here, but we do get some glimpses of what I can only assume is the highlight of the film: Mr. Matthew Modine.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  As you well know, The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th.

Be wary, Batfans!  The first reviews for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises have landed online, and I’m currently playing an intense game of virtual frogger in an attempt to dodge any and all further information about the film before I catch the midnight showing this Thursday.  That said, a few new images from the latest issue of EW have landed online, and they’re A-OK for those worried about seeing too much.  Bruce Wayne fiddles with technology, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ducks, and Nolan can be seen playing with some toy cars while mapping out what one assumes is an action sequence.  Or maybe he just likes toy cars.

Hit the jump to check out the images, and Godspeed in your spoiler-free quest.  The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th, and you can check out a listing of all IMAX theaters projecting the film in 70mm right here.

The work of the marketing department for The Dark Knight Rises was clearly finished a couple days ago when Jimmy Fallon Pee-Wee Herman’d together his own teaser for the film. But instead of sending Fallon a “Thanks for guaranteeing us $200 mil” card and donating the rest of their promo budget to starving children, Warner Brothers has decided to keep dishing out little peeks of Bruce Wayne and co. all the way up to its July 20 opening. Now, keeping in mind that it contains no Paul Reubens-related content of any kind, does anybody want to see a pic of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) firing a gun while taking cover beneath an unconscious man? Because we’ve got it…along with a bunch of other images from the Christopher Nolan epic (a couple of which we’ve seen before in lower-res form). No real Heinz Field-shaking info to be found in most of them. Highlights include Joseph Gordon-Levitt holding a gun, Michael Caine standing in a room clearly decorated from his eyes out, and Bane (Tom Hardy) bringing his reckoning to Gotham’s financial district. Hit the jump to check them out.

The Dark Knight Rises has released another clip in its related series of cast appearances on late night talk shows.  We previously brought you this frank dialogue between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman, followed by these two clips focusing on Anne Hathaway and Morgan Freeman. Today’s clip once again focuses on the non-costumed version of the characters, giving a good amount of backstory to go along with the action sequences.  Snippets of it were previously seen in trailers, but now we have a little more context to go along with it.  Starring Christian Bale,  The Dark Knight Rises opens in IMAX July 20th.  Hit the jump for the new clip and a recap of all of our coverage so far.