Don’t stage any super-elaborate magic tricks that expose the corruption of the rich and give back to the world if you haven’t seen “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.” Major spoilers ahead!
If you’re familiar with the “Now You See Me” franchise, you know there was a big casting change-up between the first two films. In 2013’s “Now You See Me” (directed by Louis Leterrier), the central group of the story — the do-gooder, heist-pulling magicians known as the Four Horseman — is made up of J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), sleight-of-hand expert Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). Unfortunately, Fisher’s real-life pregnancy interfered with the production schedule for Jon M. Chu’s “Now You See Me 2” in 2016, so the movie dodged the issue within its narrative and introduced Lula May, a new magician who specializes in both misdirection and elaborate disguises, played by Lizzy Caplan.
As someone who liked both Henley and Lula and noticed that Caplan was conspicuously absent from most of the marketing for the long-awaited third movie — “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” helmed by Eisenberg and Harrelson’s “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer — I was really happy to see Caplan’s Lula show up about halfway through the 2025 flick. When /Film exclusively spoke to Fleischer, he addressed this directly: “I was really proud of the fact that we got to kind of rectify the Henley-Lula swap that went virtually unexplained in the second movie and that we got a chance to service that story,” he told us.
So how did Fleischer and his team bring Lula back into the “Now You See Me” franchise, and what do we need to remember about her from the second film?
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Lula May joins the Horsemen in Now You See Me 2, and she’s a brilliant addition to the ensemble
Lula looking over her shoulder and smirking with Jack behind her in Now You See Me 2 – Lionsgate
When Atlas, Merritt, and Jack first reunite in “Now You See Me 2,” they briefly mention that Isla Fisher’s Henley got “bored” waiting for orders from the Eye, the mysterious and shadowy organization that often rallies the Four Horsemen to do their bidding and expose the evil acts of rich and powerful people. In her stead, they end up working with Lizzy Caplan’s Lula, who shows off her magical prowess by breaking into Atlas’ house — much to his chagrin — and then becomes the official fourth Horseman after the group’s benefactor of sorts, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), officially enlists her.
Lula’s talents lie in misdirection — she, like Jack, is very good at sleight-of-hand tricks — but she’s also a master of costumes and faking frightening medical events (something that definitely comes up in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”). Not only that, but Lula is a lot funnier than Henley; while this is definitely thanks to the script she’s given (and isn’t a knock on Fisher, who’s an incredibly funny performer), Caplan is a preternaturally talented comedic actress who’s been making people laugh for years in things like “Mean Girls,” “Party Down,” and the severely underrated Leslye Headland movie “Bachelorette.” Lula, who ends up striking up a romantic connection with Jack — a magician she’s incidentally admired as a sort of fangirl for years — is a welcome presence in “Now You See Me 2.” So how does the third movie bring her back into the fold in a way that makes sense?
How does Now You See Me: Now You Don’t bring back Lizzy Caplan’s Lula May?
Lula smiling onstage wearing a microphone and holding a dove in Now You See Me 2 – Lionsgate
Like its predecessor, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” features a sequence where the Four Horsemen somewhat reluctantly reunite in order to take down Rosamund Pike’s diamond magnate Veronika Vanderberg, but this time, the Horseman are joined by newcomers Charlie (Justice Smith), Bosco (Dominic Sessa), and June (Ariana Greenblatt). Once all of them are gathered, Merritt asks Jack where Lula is. Jack, seeming regretful about the apparent end of their relationship, says Lula moved to Paris.
That seems like the end of it, right? I sort of accepted Lizzy Caplan probably wouldn’t come back, but thankfully, the writers figured out a pretty clever way to bring her back into the mix. After the now-Seven Horsemen are led to a seemingly abandoned and very remote chateau in France where they reunite with Eye member Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), they’re hunted by French police. Everyone but Jack, Merritt, and June escapes, but those three end up in prison; at that point, Henley and Atlas realize they’ve got a friend in France.
Caplan’s Lula totally saves the day by dressing up as an old French vagrant and frees the prisoners, and she gives the back half of the movie some much-needed levity, expressing a bizarre admiration for Veronika that’s admittedly really funny and bugging the Horsemen about the fact that nobody bothered to call her. (Caplan sometimes stops short of yelling, “I was in the last movie!”) Plus, it gives a spotlight to female magicians — as Henley, June, and Lula wryly note, there aren’t many of those — but in any case, it’s lovely to see Caplan and Fisher get to make on-screen magic together.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is in theaters now.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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