Now You See Me 2 | Jon M. Chu | June 10, 2016
Following the mixed reviews but positive box office earnings of Now You See Me, a sequel was a no-brainer. Now, three years later, we have Now You See Me 2, a perhaps more tricked-out and slightly flashier sequel with a little more heart.
The film picks up roughly a year and a half after the events of Now You See Me with the Horsemen (down to J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco)) still in hiding and itching to get back into the game, despite the orders of Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), who continues to lead the FBI on wild pigeon chases after the Horsemen. Rhodes has a new mission, though: expose the head of Octa, a new smartphone that sends all user information to the black market, at a product launch. And they have help from Lula (Lizzy Caplan), an up-and-coming magician and fan of the Horsemen who is recruited by Rhodes. However, there’s a monkey wrench thrown into the mission as the 4 Horsemen find themselves on the run and whisked away to Macau by reclusive and thought-dead tech figure Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe) to have them steal a computer chip while Rhodes is outed to his fellow FBI agents and is forced to seek out the imprisoned Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) for help locating the quartet.
On one hand, Now You See Me 2 is a little more energetic and has a bit more heart and levity than its predecessor. This is thanks, in part, to Lizzy Caplan’s banter and Woody Harrelson’s dual roles as Merritt and his twin brother Chase. The global aspect (traveling from the US to Macau and finally to London) helps widen the scope. And the main trick at the center of the film – a seemingly impossible but slightly plausible and meticulously choreographed cardistry sequence – is a bit of a nail-biter.
However, my nitpicks with Now You See Me 2 focus mostly on the plot and characters, but on the tricks to a lesser extent. The film opens with a flashback to Lionel Shrike’s last magic trick, which might have served as a better introduction for the first film – and that’s before Bradley summarizes the first film in the form of an animated online video from prison. About half of the plot elements from Now You See Me were dropped – namely Isla Fisher’s Henley, Melanie Laurent’s Alma, and a good portion of the FBI cat-and-mouse chase. The latter is present in the film, spearheaded by new Agent Natalie Austin (Sanaa Lathan), but there’s little they accomplish in the film as a whole. She’s about as underutilized and underdeveloped as Li (Jay Chou), a magic shop proprietor in the Macau area, and the returning Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine).
There’s also the lack of an element of risk. You know none of the Horsemen are going to bite the bullet, seeing as how Wilder faked his death in the prior film. And in addition to the lack of risk, there’s the feeling of a conned payoff at the end of the film, which easily leaves the door open for Now You See Me 3, which is apparently in the works. However, the Pledge, Turn, and Prestige of the whole trick may already be complet, to borrow from The Prestige.
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