REVIEW: NOW YOU SEE ME 2

Now You See Me 2, is the sequel to 2013’s magical film, Now You See Me. Once again we are watching The Four Horsemen taking on yet another magical heist.

I was a fan of 2013’s Now You See Me. Yes, it does become a little far-fetched as the plethora of tricks become apparent. But to be honest, I was entertained by what was happening on screen. Now, flash forward to 2016’s Now You See Me 2. Let’s just say, it lost a lot of the charm and entertainment that the first film had.

NYSM2 takes place mostly in Macau, or otherwise known as, “Asia’s Las Vegas”. So of course, there are the obligatory gambling scenes, disguises, and so on and so forth. The Four Horsemen are forced to help a man named, Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), retrieve a computer chip that can hack into any computer in the world. He demands their help, because he lost so much money in the heist that The Horsemen pulled off in their first film.

The plot of the story unfolds as The Horsemen take on this heist to the backdrop of a Chinese Vegas casino. For a while it was as if I was watching Ocean’s 11 with magic tricks. Really? Is that the only environment where a heist can take place? A casino? This unoriginal plot was lazy on the writers’ part. But where one domino falls, so do the others. The editing and continuity issues were horrendous. There’s a scene where Woody Harrelson is giving someone the middle finger. But in the next shot, we see that his hands are down by his side and he’s looking off into the distance. These issues should have been caught early in the post-production phase.

As for the actors, they weren’t bad. Atlas, whose played by Jesse Eisenberg, kind of becomes their leader for a while, and he looked great doing it. His character, who plays the guy that doesn’t give a shit, truly comes off as such, but you still enjoy his presence on screen. Dave Franco and Harrelson, who play their respective characters, Jack Wilder and Merritt McKinney, are good but not as entertaining as the first film. Lizzy Caplan, who plays Lula in the film, tries to fill the shoes of the pregnant Isla Fisher, and well, she tried. Her jokes came off as too much for certain scene, which made her character appeal annoying. I would have preferred Fisher to return, but Caplan did a decent job. As for Mark Ruffalo who plays FBI agent Dylan Rhodes, his story of his magician father, once again reared its weary head into the film, and became too repetitive.

There’s not much to expect from NYSM 2 and their unbelievable magic tricks, which truly don’t come to fruition, until the last half hour of the film.  And when the characters begin to explain it in the end, it still doesn’t make sense. I’m talking to you, Eisenberg, and your mysterious turning into a rain puddle trick. Though NYSM 2 runs longer than it should, there are points of the film that are entertaining, but those come few and far between. If I had to make a suggestion, I would advise you to stick with the original film, or go watch Ocean’s 11.

 

Directed by: Jon Chu

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Radcliffe, and Morgan Freeman

Rating: