Edward Cullen! Cedric Diggory! Bruce Wayne! Lighthouse Guy! Crisis on Infinite Pattinsons!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: class warfare rules in the hands of South Korea’s Bong Joon Ho, from the improbable post-apocalyptic supertrain metaphor of Snowpiercer to the widely celebrated Parasite, Winner of Four Academy Awards Including Best Picture™. Whether it’s the filthy-rich versus the dirt-poor, the genteel-affluent versus the barely-getting-by, or the dirt-poor versus the dirtless-homeless-everythingless, satirical skewerings of the eternal tug-of-war between the have-it-alls and have-nots over their variances in have-measures are very much his favorite field of cinematic dissection.
As we waited patiently through the nearly six-year gestation of his post-Oscar follow-up Mickey 17 (the pandemic’s at fault for some of the hold-up), fans rightly expected his priciest foray into the American big-budget mainstream (with a budget twice that of his Netflix Original Okja) would play to his hot-topical interests, and that his knack for outlandish approaches would suit the material. He enjoyed access to better resources, bigger-name actors, and apparently more negotiable schedules for getting it all accomplished. Bong is in his element for much of the film’s first half, up until a midpoint onset of commentary mission-creep pivots everything off the opening premise and lurches toward another course, broader and much tireder.
The trailers for Now You See Me telegraph up front that you should expect a twist along the way. You’re teased and beguiled by the possibility of having the wool pulled over your eyes, and taunted for daring to look too closely. Sooner or later, this movie swears it will fool you.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 