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score 4/10
The first Now You See Me was a very enjoyable and entertaining flick that boasted a good cast and visually impressive stunts. The second, called Now You See Me 2, on the other hand was mediocre at best lacking the 'wow' factor of the first. Still boasting the stellar cast of the first movie with the added Daniel Radcliffe and Lizzy Caplan, who replaces Isla Fisher as the 'girl' horseman in the group, the second act as it is so-called, tries hard to make an intelligent story. This attempt backfires as the plot becomes bloated and too complex to understand towards the end of the movie, and the tricks become unconvincing.
The Four Horseman, Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Lulla (Lizzy Caplan), are hiding and the FBI are searching for them. They have been waiting for over a year to return to the stage and the leader of the Horseman, Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo, orchestrates there comeback. But as there jubilant return seemed to be going smoothly, the stage is hijacked by Walter Mabry, played by the magical Daniel Radcliffe. The magicians are then sent to Macau, where Walter awaits them. His goal is find and steal a computer chip with the ability to decrypt all of the data in the world using the Four Horsemans thieving skills. Rhodes is arrested as the FBI find out about his connection with the Horseman, but he escapes and gets a call from Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), the magician he blames for the death of father, who says he is able to help Dylan. But the deal can only be done if Dylan can get him out of prison. This plot seems easy enough to understand, but as the movie continues to develop, it becomes a whole lot more complicated than you would've thought. The movies continuing story becomes implausible, in particular the part about the computer chip.
There are many things I enjoyed with the movie but there also seems to be a little problem after that. As a whole, the visuals are really good, but there are times were it goes a bit too far (back to implausible). The cast and acting was good, but the characters are very much the same as in the first movie. There is nothing new about them, with the exception of Mark Ruffalo's character. We are given a better and more thoughtful backstory about his past, and more emotional understanding. Out of the horseman, Woody Harrison's character is the only one whose past is even talked about when his brother comes into the frame, which didn't really do much to the movie. I personally didn't like it that much. I enjoyed Isla Fishers replacement in Lizzy Caplan. She was a fun and provides some positive energy to the group, which contain some boring members. She has a personality which some of the characters lacked, but her role only took a bad-turn when she and Dave Franco's character, Jack Wilder, entered a horribly-developed relationship, which had nonsensical impact on the already bloated story. As long as the team had chemistry, which they did, I was fine with some of the minor problems.
The tricks were impressive but I didn't find the 'wow' factor like I did in the first movie. Also, as Thaddeus was a magic debunker, I would've liked, even for a brief minute or two, for him to explain how some of the tricks worked, which would've helped the audience, but also expand his role in the movie, especially as he is such a great actor. Continuing on with the tricks, I wish that they didn't all have to have some sort-of CGI work on them. One of the things I liked about the first movie were some of the tricks didn't require CG work at all because they were entirely performed by the magician. Though I know that the people performing the tricks are not magicians, they could've at least applied some free-hand stuff for the actors to perform.
Overall, the movie, despite its bloated story and extensive CGI work, was entertaining and fun to watch. It has some resemblance to the first movie, which I didn't entirely enjoy, and hope that if they do make a third (I hear they are) that they make a more believable and different story, continuing on with some of the great visual effects.
alva3901 27 June 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3495306/ |
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21-11-2019 09:19:29