Review for Now You See Me 2

Now You See Me 2 continues the story of The Horsemen, minus Isla Fisher's character, for some reason, but she is replaced by the always entertaining Lizzy Caplan. Atlas, McKinney and Wilder, along with their FBI connection Dylan have been exposed by a mysterious technical wizard and the team are forced to work to steal an advanced new chip in an impossible heist that only a team with their expertise could achieve.

This story takes all around the world from LA, to Macau, to London with some old foes and some new ones along the way. It's difficult to describe the film without spoiling many of things that the film has to spoil and that makes discussing it even more difficult. Suffices to say this is basically Magic's Eleven. I haven't seen the original and at times I wish I had, as I feel that certain things they ellude to in this film would make more sense by watching it.

I enjoyed watching this film, but on reflection I'm not sure why. The characters have great chemistry together and the amount of Oscar-winners/nominees in this film is amazing to see. All the Horsemen are great and I loved Caplan's quirky character throughout. Ruffalo as the group's FBI insider is just great as he always is. The character of Walter Mabry played by Daniel Radcliffe has been compared to a Bond villain and really that is the only way to describe him. In this role he is perfect and his interaction with the Horsemen is fantastic.

My problem with this film is that it did feel a lot like an episode of Columbo or one of the Ocean's Eleven films focusing too much on the crime and action, rather than the intelligence of the magic. The whole sequence that takes place in the vault is just so complicated, full of moments of genius and also ludicrous moments that just clashed somewhat. Overall, the film is entertaining and definitely worth a watch.

Extras are slightly disappointing. A short featurette You Can't Look Away is really only a look at how they created the scenes and I understand them doing this, because it is good to see how they created certain sets, but there is nothing that I would watch again. The Audio Commentary with Director Jon M. Chu is, like all solo commentaries, stilted and a little boring. That is not to say he doesn't have some good stories to tell, but there are far too many times when he is silent and really he should have had someone with him to bounce stories off.

Now You See Me 2 is an entertaining film, but also feels like there were so many lost chances to make this more entertaining. The magic is almost put on the back burner and it’s much more like a heist film and nothing more. That is not to say I wasn't entertained, the performances are good, the music and look of the film is fabulous and though I did feel the ending was a bit weak, I did enjoy it. If you are a fan of the original you should enjoy this and hopefully they make another. I only hope that one has a bit more of a magic touch to it than this one.