This is very much the truth for Now You See Me 2, a modestly entertaining effort mostly on the strength of its ensemble cast, including two Academy Award winners and three Academy Award nominees, who could play these characters in their sleep. They say that life is more about the journey than the destination. When their efforts go awry, the Four Horsemen find themselves at the mercy of Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), the aforementioned tech firm's CEO who wants to use the Four Horsemen to help pull off a seemingly impossible heist. Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) has been locked away, while Michael Caine's Arthur Tressler, who was left empty-handed in the first film, is still awaiting the perfect opportunity for revenge.Īfter laying low for a year, the Four Horsemen are called back into action by their leader and guide, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), a double-agent of sorts with his own agenda for everything that unfolds, to take down one of the world's largest tech firms with dastardly plans for achieving world tech dominance in a way that is frightening because it feels slightly plausible. The Four Horsemen, sort of the magic world's Robin Hood, have been laying low since the events that unfolded in Now You See Me, a viewing of which isn't necessarily necessary to enjoy this film but it would likely help to understand the dynamics between several of the main characters. In her place, Lizzy Caplan pops in as Lula, a stalkerish wannabe with some serious gifts for hocus-pocus. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) are back as The Four Horsemen, though the fourth, Henley (Isla Fisher), has parted ways reportedly due to Fisher's real life pregnancy. Unfortunately, Chu has already been pegged to directly the already in the works third film, as well. With Now You See Me 2, Chu has chosen to embrace the absolute absurdity of it all and the dumbed down and less character-driven story lacks the first film's holding power. Part of the joy of Now You See Me was that no matter how preposterous it got, Leterrier took it seriously and that conviction carried us through the gimmicks, the implausibilities, the inconsistencies and so on. The same is very much true for Now You See Me 2, a modestly entertaining film that lacks the pleasant surprise and delight of the first film and, try as he might, nothing Chu does ever comes close.
You may spend some time trying to figure the trick out and you may even find yourself completely blown away by the trick, but if you ever see that trick again it'll never have the same magic again. If there's one thing that's true about magic, it's that once you've seen a trick you've seen the trick. Joe: Retaliation, two Step Up films and last year's rather infamous flop Jem and the Holograms, has turned in a less action-oriented and more openly cartoonish sequel that feels familiar yet still for the most part entertains largely on the strength of an ensemble cast who have fun even when the script isn't letting them. Chu, on the other hand, whose directorial credits also include G.I. Chu's lighter touch is a marked difference from that of his predecessor, French director Louis Leterrier (Tne Transporter, Now You See Me), whose approach leaned toward taking the absurd seriously and amping up the action sequences. Chu has shot two, count 'em two, Justin Bieber documentaries, so we know that he's used to working with shallow material.