Now You See Me 2 (internationally known as: Now You See Me: The Second Act) is an upcoming American magic caper thriller film directed by Jon M. Chu. A sequel to the 2013 film Now You See Me, it stars Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco, with Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Jay Chou, and Sanaa Lathan; Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman also reprise their roles.
SPOILER ALERT!!
My notes on Now You See Me 2:
1. In Christopher Nolan's vastly superior The Prestige, it was revealed that a magic trick consisted of three critical acts: The Pledge (where a magician shows you something ordinary, say an empty box), The Turn (where he creates something extraordinary out of it, like entering the box and disappearing), and The Prestige (where he ups the ante and completely stuns the audience, by suddenly appearing at the very back of the stage).
It would be very hard to successfully pull off this kind of magic now given the discerning minds that wanted to know how every trick was done and the countless Unmasking the Magician and Breaking the Magician's Code episodes.
Some of us still wanted to be fooled, though, especially after the enjoyable first Now You See Me movie where The Four Horsemen pulled a literal million dollar stunt. Unfortunately, this sequel stopped trying after reaching The Turn.
2. Similar to watching a magic show, you know that you would have to suspend your disbelief for long stretches of time. You usually check your brain at the door and say goodbye to your Doubting Thomas self as soon as you enter the cinema. There is a limit to this, though, and that limit was completely abused here.
The worst sequence had to be the one where they kept throwing a card around while everyone around them (talk about a tight security) barely even noticed. It was elaborately designed to make the audience giddy with excitement and go "Ooooh!" at the end but that scene just flopped and I let out my trademark "Pfft!". Mas pilit pa siya kesa sa Elmo Magalona and Janella Salvador loveteam tbh.
3. There were still some nifty bits (I particularly liked the sushi plate that turned into an attache case), but when the movie started explaining everything that happened (how the group ended up in Macau, for example) in the middle of the movie (!!!), it was just hard not to roll my eyes.
4. Lizzy Caplan would always be Janis Ian and I wasn't sure why she was trying to act like Max Black (the broke waitress, not the philosopher) here. Kat Dennings wasn't available?
5. Woody Harrelson stole every scene that he was in, especially as the curly twin brother who seemed lost in a 60's time zone. I wouldn't have complained if the movie focused on them instead of the tragic back story of Mark Ruffalo's father.
6. I loved the Joy Luck Club film so I was pleasantly surprised to see Auntie Lindo (the wonderful Tsai Chin) being her Auntie Lindo self here. I could actually recite her lines from that movie still complete with her Chinese accent ("See hyeahhh..."). I suddenly remembered my favorite part in the book where another Chinese mother complained to her daughter about their nasty American male neighbor ("He raise his hand like this, show me his ugly fist and call me worst Fukien landlady. I not from Fukien. Hunh! He know nothing!"). Read the book, please!
7. So there's really a champagne that's worth $1.2M? Wow! If I owned one, I would probably be taking the smallest sips every other day so that it would last my entire lifetime. (Who am I kidding? I would probably keep it in our cabinet of wines where my mom stored all of my dad's wines that were never to be touched. I could swear we still have those Chivas Regal bottles that were placed there in the 80's.)
8. That final airplane sequence was a complete mess. It was unoriginal, too, since it was first done to Paris Hilton in an Egyptian prank show. Says a lot about the movie, huh?
9. Daniel Radcliffe was looking more and more like the father of Liza Soberano in Dolce Amore. Also, all those years of studying magic in Hogwarts and he was still left clueless in the end. Hermione would be so disappointed. Tsk tsk!
Movie Rate : ★★☆☆☆
Movie Review by : Jason Javier
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