Now You See Me 2 – Movie Reviews By Chris
Director: Jon M. Chu
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Daniel Radcliffe
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13 (M). Violence and some language.
Running Time: 129 minutes (2 hours 9 minutes).
Release Date: 2nd June 2016 (Australia), 10th June 2016 (USA), 17th June 2016 (India)
Now You See Me 2 revisits the world of the Four Horsemen- consisting of Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and Lula (Lizzy Caplan)- the magician ‘Robin Hoods’. But after a show goes wrong, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is exposed to be a double agent for the Horsemen, and the group flee into unknown circumstances. They are captured by rich tech genius Walter (Daniel Radcliffe) and forced to steal an ingenious piece of computer software. The Horsemen find themselves out of their comfort zones as they realise that their new enemy is always one step ahead. Together, they must use their skills and deception to turn the tables and expose Walter as the criminal he truly is. Old enemies resurface, betrayals are made, revenge is served, and emotional bonds are formed and broken as the Horsemen struggle with who to trust and how to stay alive…
The Now You See Me franchise, I must admit, is a guilty pleasure of mine. It may not be of the best quality but I’m a sucker for magic and layered, genius plans that constantly keep you guessing, so these films are perfect for me. But in this movie, that whole concept goes out the window. Yes, in some parts there are layered plans and you don’t know who has the upper hand, but for the most part the Horsemen are fish out of water, and while it was refreshing at times, that is where this film was worse than the original. They tried to deliver some plot twists to keep it exciting and unexpected, but my two reactions to these were either ‘meh, I could see that happening’ or ‘oh, ok’ and then I just rolled with it. None of the plot twists really made me do a double take- a pretty poor replication of the fantastic twists in the first film, and there was one or two that took away from the movie’s events, like- they were on their side the whole time? Really? My favourite sequence by far in this movie though involved a card. Just one card. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll know what I’m talking about, but until then, keep an eye out for that card sequence. It was AWESOME!!! Even though some of it was a little fake, I still enjoyed it immensely!
The cast and characters! VERY interesting! While I love most of the big names in these movies, many argue that it is over saturated, and that may be true, but it didn’t bother me aside from the fact that they tried to give everyone their own portion of screen time, even if they didn’t need it. The returning cast includes Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and David Warshofsky with new faces Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, and Sanaa Lathan among other secondary characters. You might notice the absence of Isla Fisher who appeared in the first one as Henley Reeves- the original female horseman. Well, she’s pregnant so they made up some mediocre excuse for her character’s absence and replaced her with the much more annoying Caplan. There was one character though which was just UNNECESSARY AND I’M ANGRY AT WHOEVER CAME UP WITH THE IDEA; Merritt McKinney’s ‘identical twin’ (also played by Harrelson). He was outrageously irritating. Waste of screen time and my time. Not integral to the plot, could have easily been cut out. Everybody else performed to their expected standard, and I really liked Radcliffe as the villain! It’s good to see he’s breaking out of that ‘Harry Potter’ cage. They also tried to create a love story between Franco’s and Caplan’s characters- but this was very much forced and underdeveloped.
The tone of this movie was something else I really liked; it was a lot more brutal and gritty this time round. Every character has their own motivation for the actions they take and the antagonists of this movie are out for blood. The stakes have risen. In the first movie, the Horsemen were evading capture, now they are evading death! At times, it gets really intense and even scary! That was an element that overcame the original for me. Themes addressed in this movie was family, trust, revenge, love, betrayal, and death.
Now, for there to be lots of magic tricks in this movie (which were impressive), there needed to be some good special effects for the tricks which weren’t so convincing and organic, and sometimes that sadly fell below par. Another sequel is reportedly in the works- no release date yet, but I personally don’t think it’s necessary. But if you’ve got a good storyline… you’ve done well so far, so why not? The soundtrack was pretty much renewed from the first one (which was pretty perfect), but could be perceived as a little lazy. It perfectly captures the wonder and enigma of a magic trick and is always a good tune to walk away from a successful heist with. You should probably have a good idea of the first one to be able to fully enjoy this movie, but enjoyment can still be found with no knowledge of previous installments.
To improve, some character development of these characters and their relationships would be nice, and get rid of the unnecessary auxiliary characters who don’t have much of a role (i.e. the FBI, and random twin). Maybe work on the ending not being an ‘and they lived happily ever after’ moment? And I also didn’t like the style with which the logic behind the tricks were revealed this time round. That could be more natural.
To finish, this film wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I really had a good time! While it’s not a high quality film, it’s very entertaining and likes to keep you guessing, which made up a lot of slack in my final rating. I would strongly recommend this movie.
Rating: 7.5/10
