Now You See Me criticism- spoilers

[Adam Reynolds]

While I somewhat enjoyed the movie while watching it, afterwards it left somewhat of a bad taste due to the implications. While I liked the Robin Hood element, I disliked the fact that the skeptic was the villain. Morgan Freeman's character reminded me of a villainous version of James Randi or to a lesser extent Penn and Teller. Personality wise he couldn't be further from Randi however with more of a motive of making money whereas Randi really does seem more of a pro-science and rationality motive.

[Guardsman Bass]

What was the trick they used to steal the money? I heard it was something with mirrors. . .

[Adam Reynolds]

There were two times they stole money. The first was from a French Bank in which they never actually robbed the bank, instead hitting the money in transit. The second did involve mirrors as it was a variation on the classic rabbit in the box, the real safe never actually moved until after the FBI chased after the fake one. After they left the "empty" room the "dead" magician came back for it and used an explosive to breach the safe and take all of the money away.

That was a clever thing they did in which they always made it seem that what they did was impossible but in fact it was all much simpler than it seemed. Though there was the impossible technology bit that helped them somewhat as well as hypnosis that actually worked as advertized rather than the way it works in reality(which is that it is more of a social pressure element than anything else, see this Improv Everywhere skit for an amusing variation). Penn and Teller did an excellent skit debunking hypnotism in an episode of Bullshit as well. Much of what Woody Harrelson's character does is analogous to Derren Brown, who uses a lot of classical magic tricks and charm and convinces people that there is advanced psychology to it. Though there are obviously some elements of psychology and social engineering to it though the overwhelming majority is simple magic tricks and misdirection.

Interestingly as for the idea of magicians becoming thieves, the TNT caper series Leverage did the opposite in the episode The Top Hat Job in which the characters, a group of Robin Hood like thieves infiltrate a company by posing as the entertainment, a group of illusionists. Though in their case they were not actually very good at the entertainment part.

[FaxModem1]

Morgan Freeman's character didn't seem like James Randi but more like Val Valentino, the masked magician who exposed tricks on the Fox Network in the 90s and early 2000s.