Now You See Me 2 - Movie Review!

Who's In It?

Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson and Daniel Radcliffe


What's It About?

When the Horsemen 'escape' from a failed heist in America and find themselves in China, they are forced to do a tech genius' bidding to regain their lives.

Any Good?

The first Now You See Me was a clever film with great tricks that was let down by a stupid ending, but the sequel cleared that up from the beginning and sets up the rest nicely.

I thought the story in this was clever, especially with the tricks and explanations, but it was totally predictable from the start - but, that's not exactly a bad thing. It handled the break-ins and tricks so well by giving away details of them in the scenes, but saving the key parts for their big reveals (almost like real magicians!). The bigger break-ins were smart and really were exciting, while the down scenes between Mark Ruffalo and Morgan Freeman were great.

Speaking of Ruffalo and Freeman, when those two were alone it was like a different film. They played the characters really well and the chemistry was there between them, which was jarring from the rest of the actors.

I didn't mind the cheesy acting from most of the characters and even liked the OTT Woody Harrelson characters, but I feel bad for Lizzy Caplan as Lula. She was written horribly - I guess she was to be the comic relief/relateable one? - but she went from great prospective illusionist into an annoyance who only asked stupid questions and batted her eyelids at Dave Franco.

Honestly, I believe this film is the definition of fine. It's not meant to be a masterpiece and it has some really interesting parts, but nothing stuck out to make it memorable. The break-in and escape scenes were really good, but there wasn't much motive or reason to do these things other than 'he said do it' or 'it's what the Horsemen do' which left a feeling of 'oh, they're doing that now'.

While I did enjoy it enough, I'd say wait till it's Netflix or other streaming services.

Rating: