It helps to think of the “Now You See Me” film franchise as a manga that dodged the whole anime series then anime movie “product” assembly line. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” brought on that epiphany.

Revived a dozen years after it launched and six years after a sequel that included Daniel Radcliffe, these tepid thrillers are pure pop fantasy, with a manga style universe in which magic is not just cool, it’s “hip.” Gen Y and Z are all about pop-up shows where four Gen X-ers — OK, three plus one Boomer — show them card tricks, rob the robber barons and serve up justice by sharing all that ill-gotten, hoarded wealth with the underemployed “Gen Z staring” masses.

If you think of it all as manga in origin, you can brush off every absurd assumption, assertion (“This is cool!”) and laughable “reality” with a “Well, that’s what’s big in Japan right now.”

Hey, we all have our coping mechanisms.

Confronted with this joyless, by-the-numbers “getting the band back together” reunion, with ancient overseer Michael Caine retired out of the series and the agent chasing these “outlaw” magicians around the globe (Mark Ruffalo) reduced to a Zoom call with three new “horsemen” recruited to the four FIVE horsemen of the first two films, you can’t just wait to hang on every word the normally wonderful Rosamund Pike utters for a laugh.

Pike plays the villain, a South African diamond mining empress. And that accent... Oh. My. God.

Ordinarily, actors not named Sharlto Copley, Alice Krige or Embeth Davidtz speak a version of English that’s mostly Aussie without the “crikeys.” But Pike (“Gone Girl”) goes at it like a Jamaican on a rum-bender in County Kildare.

“She makes all the world’s worst people possible,” is how Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) describes Veronica Vanderberg’s blood diamond/money-laundering empire. Yes, and she makes South African Oscar winner Charlize Theron spit up her prosecco every time she opens her mouth.

The four credited screenwriters open the film with a pop-up show in Bushwick, with the long-split-up “Four Horsemen” of magic (Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson and even Isla Fischer from the first film) pulling out all the stops as they appear, disappear and make a crypto bro’s millions vanish into the hands of the Gen Z audience.

But it turns out the “Horsemen” weren’t really there. It was an illusion/hustle cooked up by Ms. Parkour practicing Pickpocket June (Ariana Greenblatt), tech nerd illusionist Charlie (Justice Smith) and “Horsemen” hating master of disguise Bosco (Domonic Sessa).

J. Daniel Atlas is not amused. He was summoned there by a tarot card clue, and after he’s instantly sussed who the real practical jokers are, he enlists the new kids on the block for a heist.

Can the world’s largest diamond, the wellspring of the wealth of the Vanderberg diamond empire, be swiped? Let the old blood meet the new blood and we’ll see if that can be sorted out.

Jack (Franco), reduced to cruise ship magic bookings, mom Henley (Fisher) and hard-drinking hypnotist.”mentalist” Merritt (Harrelson) show up with their own Tarot card summons to pitch in, mid-theft.

“This liver is not going to destroy itself,” Merritt reasons between rounds.

They don tuxes and evening wear and disguises, crash galas, zipline, jet off to “the Orlando of the Middle East” (Abu Dhabi), steal a Formula One race car and face death because, as our South African princess reminds us “The Vanderberg family day nowt lowse!”

The humor is meant to come from the clash of generations, mocking shots of “You kids make a REAL difference” and the like.

The illusions are well-handled, “unbelievable” but easy enough to pull off — in a movie. Bringing back Henley’s “replacement” Horseman from “Now You See Me 2” (Lizzy Caplan) is worth a chuckle or three, mainly in her disguises.

But there are now FAR too many characters to track. And there’s no pop to the story or the new recruits. An F-1 car chase, a harrowing escape or two and more magic words of wisdom from the sage Thaddeus (Morgan Freeman) don’t put the picture over.

That four-handed screenplay gives us 85 minutes of movie, and “Zombieland/Venom” director Ruben Fleischer drags that out to nearly two hours. That underscores just how much this disposable piffle outstays its welcome.

As for the formidable Ms. Pike, let’s hope this over-budget card trick and her accent vanish before any real career damage is done.

Rating: PG-13, violence, profanity

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Rosamund Pike, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dave Franco, Ariana Greenblatt, Lizzy Caplan, Dominic Sessa and Morgan Freeman

Credits: Directed by Ruben Fleischer, scripted by Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Leslie, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, based on characters created by Boaz Yakin. A Lionsgate release.

Running time: 1:52