Good magic is all about misdirection.
"Now You See Me 2" is all about bad direction.
A louder, even more confused follow-up to the surprise 2013 hit, it throws a lot of stuff at the screen. But little of it sticks, and even less makes sense.
True, things have gotten awkward since the last movie — in part because original co-star Isla Fisher didn't sign on for this sequel, her character's been written out and replaced.
The funniest 'Freaks and Geeks' scenes[1]
But the rest of the cocky magicians/do-gooders known as the Horsemen — played by Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco and Woody Harrelson — are back. And this time they've got Lizzy Caplan on their side.
Also, courtesy of secret boss Mark Ruffalo, they also have a new job: infiltrate a tech conference, and expose a plan to steal and sell the world's secrets.
From l., Dave Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Eisenberg) and Woody Harrelson work their magic in 'Now You See Me 2.'
(Jay Maidment/Lionsgate)So far, so complicated — like the first film, the plotting remains a little vague. But some sequences stand out. There's one good scene where Eisenberg's Atlas does a quick-change act; another where the four illusionists keep palming and passing a very valuable playing card.
But if some moments of magic soar, most of the characters quickly crash to earth.
Eisenberg — still sporting a barely grown-out buzz cut from the end of his lamented stint on "Batman v Superman" — is almost aggressively unlikable. Harrelson's "hey, bro" McKinney is a smoked ham, and Franco's Wilder a smirking poser (his entire motivation seems to consist of the mantra, be good-looking).
And while at least there's some effort to make Caplan's spunky Lula more than The Girl, the big scene given to Ruffalo's Rhodes — in which he yells about how faceless corporations are stealing our lives — sounds merely like the great Bernie Sanders speech he never got to give.
Woody Harrelson applies to open medical marijuana dispensary[2]
There are some pretty locations (with the usual eye on the Asian market, the studio has set most of the movie in China). And although he's clearly having more fun than we are, Harrelson gets to play two parts, while the guest-star list includes not only the returning Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman but Daniel Radcliffe, too.
Harrelson is the wildcard in the sequel to the 2013 thriller.
(Jay Maidment/Lionsgate)None of it adds up to much more than smoke and mirrors. Worse, the movie even casually strips the first one for parts, rejiggering plot elements so wildly the franchise itself no longer makes sense.
"Why didn't you tell me this before," one shocked character asks another, after the person makes a confession completely reversing everything we thought we knew about him.
"I don't know," he says.
Making a successful sequel is always a little bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. But the only magic trick here is how slowly they've made two hours of our lives disappear.
It's time to bring down the curtain on this show.
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- ^ Woody Harrelson applies to open medical marijuana dispensary (www.nydailynews.com)
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