![]() ![]() ![]() Take the absurd card-smuggling scene-only worse than the motion sickness it induced was the sense that the sequence was supposed to be the casual magic lover’s equivalent of seeing Don Draper delivering a brilliant ad pitch. Even the movie’s heavy-handed populist messages about digital privacy and corporate transparency feel strangely remote, perhaps because Now You See Me 2 is more invested in making every scene look as cool as humanly possible. ![]() Fascinating themes and ideas hover at the margins-the malleability of perception, the virtues of inspiring awe in a world where technology has ably supplanted magic-but the film mostly keeps them hidden behind a curtain. (On the heels of everyone is an exasperated team of FBI agents who barely register as a threat.)Īll of which is to say that, despite the film’s constant fourth-wall-breaking dialogue about how “seeing is not believing” and “the eye can lie,” there isn’t actually much beneath the surface. The two begin an uneasy alliance as Dylan tries to locate the missing Horsemen, but that’s about as sensical as their storyline gets. Water gives the Horsemen a choice: They can help him steal an Octa-developed computer chip capable of de-encrypting all the data in the world (yes) in exchange for new identities. Or they can die.Īlso in the Horsemen’s orbit is an imprisoned “magic debunker” named Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), whom Dylan blames for his father’s death and framed out of revenge in the last film. Feeling abandoned, the Horsemen find themselves at the mercy of the wealthy and eccentric recluse Walter Maybry, played by none other than the actor whose face is synonymous with a very different kind of magic-Daniel Radcliffe. The gang is split up from Dylan, whose double-agent ways are unveiled on live TV, forcing him to go on the run. The action really begins after the Horsemen’s attempt to hijack the keynote event at Octa, an evil Apple-like company, goes horribly awry. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), and the hypnotist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson)-after its one female member (Isla Fisher) bailed. Here, she’s replaced by a new woman, Lula (Lizzy Caplan), who almost immediately points out the tokenism at work: “I’m the girl Horseman!” (Indeed, it’s a dude-heavy affair-the gender breakdown may be the most authentic thing about this movie). Now You See Me 2 (technically titled Now You See Me: The Second Act) picks up where its predecessor left off. Hiding from law enforcement, the Horsemen have a new leader in Dylan Rhodes, the FBI agent who hunted them for the entire first movie only to reveal (spoiler alert!) at the end that he’s the mastermind feeding the Horsemen their orders, as well as the son of a famed, late magician. Only three of the original Horsemen remain-the pickpocket Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), the surly J. Chu, takes the worst elements of the first-a bloated plot, excessive CGI-and doubles down on them over an exhausting 129-minute running time. Their “tests” often involve exposing corrupt businessmen or giving jilted people their money back, which turns them into global heroes and gets them in trouble with the FBI (naturally). The sequence perhaps captures everything that’s wrong with Now You See Me 2: Magic is supposed to inspire wonder, even if the audience knows it’s all smoke and mirrors and hidden trapdoors and misdirection. But very little about this hollow sequel to 2013’s heist thriller Now You See Me feels mysterious its biggest set-pieces will make viewers ask not “Whoa, how’d they do that?” but “Wait, huh?” At the center of both films are The Four Horsemen, a group of illusionists following the orders of an ancient magician’s alliance called The Eye.
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