[Movie Review] Now You See Me 2 (2016)
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writer: Ed Solomon
Runtime: 129 min
Main Cast:- Jesse Eisenberg as J. Daniel Atlas
- Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes
- Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney
- Dave Franco as Jack Wilder
- Daniel Radcliffe as Walter Mabry
- Lizzy Caplan as Lula
- Michael Caine as Arthur Tressler
- Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley
Review: by Faith and Marie
Well they are back and this movie is definitely everything we expected and more for the sequel to our favorite 2013 magician heist thriller. There are definitely more fake-outs, jaw-drops and teases waiting in this movie.
Now You See Me 2 is a sequel that has surely had us all waiting and hoping for the next installment and now it’s here. We will not say that the new film is any better than the first movie because we both believe that both movies are exceptionally awesome. We would have to say that just like the first film, this film knows that it’s playing you, and in almost every scene invites the audience to embrace the fact that it’s being played. Now You See Me 2 is more like a giddy piece of cheese from the ’80s, a chance to spend two more hours with characters we like, doing variations on the things that made us like them in the first place. The revisit of this excellent film is well-earned, and fans of the original, as well as new converts, are definitely likely to turn out in droves.
Three years ago, the first Now You See Me was a grand-illusion thriller, drawing on elements from Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s series, that kept yanking the rug out from under the audience, and each time that happened it gave you a rush. With its magician heroes, and a plot so elaborate it was like a Rubik’s Cube nestled inside a set of Russian dolls, the movie was clever and also borderline preposterous. The way the intricacy kept shading off into absurdity was all part of its diabolical corny charm. All of what draws the audience so near to this film and its characters.
In Now You See Me 2, the Four Horsemen are back, messing with our heads again and in an even more delirious and ridiculous way. They’re now underground legends; known for having pulled off an elaborate heist right in the middle of a magic show, and this is one of those movies in which the bravura of each character gets kicked up a notch, according to the rock-star logic of sequels.
When Woody Harrelson’s Merritt McKinney, the hypnotist in a pork-pie hat, reduces his targets to a putty-like trance, he now does it with even more smirky panache. Dave Franco’s sleight-of-hand artist Jack Wilder flips a deck of cards around like the Paganini of street showmanship, and Jesse Eisenberg, as group leader J. Daniel Atlas, exudes a newly understated confidence that looks great on him, and that comes as a relief after the genius-geek jibber-jabber of his slipshod demonic performance in Batman v Superman. Isla Fisher, who is not rejoining the party, has been replaced by the ingratiatingly antic Lizzy Caplan as Lula, who gets right onto the film’s wavelength of gaga showmanship in a scene where, having snuck into Daniel’s apartment, she fakes her own death by guillotine (a startling visual effect) and just keeps on talking. That lets you know that she’s in the right place. The Horseman are again a team, deeply loyal to each other, but they’re also rivals who interact in a dizzy flurry of one-upmanship.
What We Liked:
There are so many scenes to speak about and honestly, we absolutely loved the entire film. If we had to speak about one specific scene it would have to be when Jesse Eisenberg was wowing the crowd with the rain and during his final act when he falls into a puddle of water on the street and disappears. The special effects of this movie were absolutely superb. The director and creators of this film literally knew what they needed to do in order to keep the audience’s attention throughout the film. We simply could not remove our eyes from the screen ever.
What We Didn’t Like:
In both of our opinions, there is nothing to not like about this movie. We loved every single second of this movie. We even kept trying to figure out small things throughout the movie and just when we thought we were right, boy were we ever wrong. This movie had us on the edge of our seats the entire time and we loved it all.
Summary
The pleasure of Now You See Me 2 is that the Horsemen perform magic with literal human powers. They’re superheroes of the mind. Of course, the movie cheats right and left to let them do that, so we can’t take their virtuosity of illusion all that seriously. Yet it sure is fun to pretend that they or anyone could wield that level of mastery. This excellent movie was shot by Peter Deming and edited by Stan Salfas with impressive rapid-fire precision. The film counts on our desire to see the Horsemen stage one more global broadcast of show-stopping illusion, only to strand them, as prisoners, aboard a private plane. We keep thinking: When is the climax going to arrive? And the joke, of course, is on us. In Now You See Me 2, there is always more than meets the eye, maybe because the film itself never stops winking.
User Review
( votes)Images Courtesy of IMDB
