[Movies] Now You See Me 2 (2016)

So we were never big fans of Now You See Me as it felt like way too much pretty CGI and not enough magic. I was flashy but it also had an oddly convoluted plot that didn't really make all that much sense. But at least it was entertaining, I have to give them that. And I guess that was enough for most people.

A sequel wasn't what I was expecting here it is - there is in fact a Now You See Me 2 and it was more of the same weirdness with similar entertainment value. But what else could you expect from a sequel right? It helps to be consistent.

The casting behind this sequel certainly felt like a big wink to viewers givens some cheeky casting decisions. The introduction of new actors played by big name actors certainly helped things along. I still don't agree with some aspects of the character choices but the movie is still here and it still did pretty well at the box office.

Is this going to become a full-on trilogy perhaps? Only time will tell.

Synopsis: Now You See Me 2 is a 2016 is an American heist movie directed by Jon M. Chu. The screenplay was written by Ed Solomon and it takes place one year after the events of the first movie.

The Four Horsemen have been in hiding for a year now while waiting for further instructions from The Eye. Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) has remained active in the FBI despite all that had gone on in the first movie and eventually he contacts the remaining Horsemen with a new mission. Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt (Woody Harrelson), and Jack (Dave Franco) are joined by Lula (Lizzy Caplan) as a new fourth member of the team as they go about their new mission.

This mission involves exposing businessman Owen Case (Ben Lamb) and all of his corrupt practices. But things don't go as planned and one thing leads to another until the Horsemen have been delivered to Macau to meet the technology whiz who interrupted the attempt to hijack Owen's big product launch party.

What I Liked: They clearly tried to one-up themselves in terms of the big tricks and reveals and so there were some nicely elaborate heist moments that more or less included magic. The central act was obviously that one involving the card being passed to and fro between the different Horsemen that was certainly well thought-out.

At least the magic tricks felt a bit more realistic in this movie versus the first one. And Lizzy Caplan was a rather nice addition to the crew. And yes, it was fun to have Daniel Radcliffe in a movie about magic.

What Could Have Been Better: The "magic" still had a lot of CGI carrying it along and that still gets me. But what was even worse was the decision to introduce a surprise twin brother for Merritt in the form of Chase, giving us two different characters for Woody Harrelson to portray. So that made doubly annoying, especially given his "magic" involves near-instantaneous hypnosis of people.

And it seemed like the movie was determined for everyone to get into the hypnosis game, further muddying things. Then we get to the fact that Dylan Rhodes was still able to stay in the FBI for so long and how The Eye seemingly went through so much trouble to test and gather the Horsemen in the first movie only to have them lay dormant for a year? All these quirks in the story just didn't make sense.

TL;DR: Now You See Me 2 tries to build on the success of the first movie by trying to repeating a lot of the antics we saw in the first one. I'm hoping it doesn't lead to a sequel but it will get there I'm sure. Thus the movie gets 2 silly moments of hypnosis out of a possible 5.