Now You See Me 2: A Review

“ Are you listening, Horsemen? You will get what’s coming to you. In ways you can’t expect.”

This line aptly describes the entire movie, from start to finish. Pacing was brilliant. <spoiler> Look closely. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll know what the next trick is. </spoiler>

I’m going to try really hard to limit spoilers, like really hard. Let’s dive in, shall we.

Saw the trailer a couple of months back, and boy, was I wowed. I hadn’t seen the first movie yet, so, I went and got it, and was again, wowed. The movie was terrific, and that reveal at the end, mind — blowing. The sequel trumps it. It doesn’t make use of the big, well choreographed setups used in the first one, but makes excellent use of smaller, still well choreographed ones. The reveal at the end, is even more mind blowing.

We follow The Horsemen on their journey to *drum roll* Asia *end drum roll*, more specifically China, where they’ve been, ahem, recruited to, ahem, help a young tech prodigy (played by Daniel Radcliffe), get something. I did say no spoilers. Anyways, the job goes sideways (We never reallyhave movies, where the job at the begining just goes according to plan, and everyone in it lives happily ever after. Nope. Shit’s gotta go sideways), and we follow our Horsemen as they try their best to stay ahead of the game.

While the movie was great, I did have issues with it, which I’d like to point out

• Product Placement — if you look really closely throughout the course of the movie, you’ll notice a certain company’s stuff unnecessarily littered around. I mean, couldn’t they have done some cleanup? Well, people do tend to get a bit lax at work, when they’re receiving extra dough on the side. Just saying.
• I think movies have gotten to a point where we don’t need all those touchy emotional scenes, where someone has to say something motivational to get up the other characters spirits. They just seem cheesy at this point. A little bit of forthrightness won’t hurt.

And we’re back. Considering How I hadn’t seen Daniel Radcliffe in any non — Harry Potter movie (still haven’t seen The Lady in Black yet), he does well as Walter, the sociopathic tech genius. Jesse Eisenberg, fits into his role as Atlas, and is less of a control freak now than he was in the first movie, but still with control freak issues. He honestly does better than he did as Lex Luthor in the debacle that was Dawn of Justice. Woody Harrelson’s character, McKinney, seems a bit mellowed down from the first movie. Guess the writers couldn’t really find a way to make him more lively after Isla Fisher’s Henley left the crew. He does pair well with Dave Franco’s character though. Dave Franco is still captivating as Jack Wilder, and contributes well to the movie, especially in some rather juicy scenes which I won’t bother talking about here. The new addition, Lula, played by Lizzie Caplan (The Interview), is quirky, and provides the occasional comic relief, especially when the others veer into “Serious Country.” Mark Ruffalo and Morgan Freeman do well too, an allude to their years of experience. Ruffalo’s Dylan Rhodes proves that he’s a better magician than we give him credit for, seeing that as he didn’t do much magic in the previous installment. Jay Chou (The Green Hornet, Kung Fu Panda 3), also makes some appearances along the way.

It’s finally time to give my final rating. The movie gets a 7 out of 10. Oh, and it’s also sets itself up for another sequel. As with when the first movie end, we won’t know the synopsis for the sequel till it’s deemed fit to be revealed to us. Till then readers, and remember, the closer you think you are, the less you actually see. Oh, and watch out for a certain “Twin” equation too.

Here’s the trailer, in case you need extra motivation.