Now You See Me 2

Now You See Me was this fast paced entertaining thriller which works well as a popcorn entertainer. Even though it wasn’t that clear with explanations it had for everything that happened in the movie, there was this pace and some sort of captivating factor which made it a fun film worth a watch. When it comes to the sequel, which is Now You See Me 2, it basically becomes a reply for what happened in the first part and to be honest the sort of pace I expected and the style of tactics we would have expected was not there.

After exposing insurance tycoon Arthur Tressler the horsemen are sort of not doing anything and Dylan is still in the FBI trying to deviate the focus from the Horsemen case. This second segment of the franchise focuses on the next operation of the team to expose another major telecom biggie who is secretly trying to access every computer in the world. But the grand plans went wrong and that leaves the whole team in a confused state about whats going on and who is playing against them? The film finds an answer to these questions along with more explanation about the whole setup.

Like I said, the logic factors are to be set aside to enjoy this movie. The swiftness of turn of events was one thing I liked about the first part and what is mainly missing here is that aggressiveness. Now You See Me 2 in its attempt to explain too many things and establish conflicts inside the team ends up lingering on to too many moody dark sequences. Even though some of those set pieces looked impressive on screen, there isn’t much of unpredictability to the story. I am not bragging, but with the sort of permutations and combinations one would start to assume while watching the movie, I was able to guess the final trick.

Jesse Eisenburg has done the role of Danny in his usual style. Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes was nice. If Dylan was acting confused in the first part, Now You See Me 2 has him actually confused for some time. Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco are okay in their roles. Lizzy Caplan was fun to watch as the slightly eccentric and vivacious girl in the group. Daniel Radcliffe as Walter looked peculiar in the beginning. But as the narrative progresses Walter becomes unstable and it was sort of easy to predict. Morgan Freeman’s character has a key role in this second part and he in his typical style was fine in portraying the role. Michel Caine is also there reprising the same character.

Director Jon Chu can’t keep the movie in that completely engrossing mood. The film gets muddled into certain emotional equations in the middle areas and that was kind of grumpy.  In terms of content I don’t know how many of you would find the new revelation about the whole setup convincing enough when we backtrack everything that has happened already. The set pieces are entertaining, but as I already mentioned the last act was a predictable one. Once again, the background score plays a key role in keeping the movie interesting.

Now You See Me 2 isn’t good as its first part. If you are looking for improvements from the first part, this sequel would disappoint you. It has its moments of fun and twists, but ultimately becomes an average movie.

Rating : 2.5/5