Review: NOW YOU SEE ME 2

Why Did I See You?

1.5 stars

Mini review:

Take everything you loved about the original (magic and wonder) out of the sequel, and fill it in with flashing lights and fireworks. Then add cockiness to all the characters. And then take a beloved child actor and turn him into a smug, silly villain. The result is an a overwrought, tiresome movie that has a flimsy story to tell.

Main Review:

When you watched the original, you fell in love with magic and the wonder of it all. You oohed and aahed as the horsemen performed magic in the film. You sighed at the reveals and you nodded when the bad guys got their comeuppance.

The sequel should have logically, therefore, offered all this and more.

That’s the basic audience expectation from a sequel. The trouble here is that they have a wonderful ensemble cast, and a few more added, but the story is wafer thin and they thought they would get away by showing lots of special effects. And when so much depends on special effects, why should the actors work hard?

That’s why Jesse Eisenberg looks like he’s going to ask us to join the Social Netrwork, Mark Ruffalo seems burdened with more revelations from the Spotlight team, and Morgan Freeman is still playing God… You get the picture!

An annoying addition to the team is a ‘girl’ horseman. Even if you’ve been living under a rock, you will guess that a ‘girl’ would have to be sharper, smarter than the lads ( she would be a regular Jane Bond in high heels) and to prove that she’s a ‘girl’, she would be yakkity yakking until she exhausts everyone. And yes, you would at some point see her underthings, even if only for shock value. If you guessed them all, you’d watch the movie play out even before they’d planned it. Thank god they did not show her screaming because she saw a mouse or some such thing ‘girls’ are supposed to be afraid of, in order to get the attention of the man she fancies. Small mercies!

But the flash and fireworks begin to grate on your nerves, the double crossing can be seen a mile away, and the movie becomes so predictable, you can even see the filmmakers will have the tiny Chinese lady speak clearly in English after having frustrating conversations before. The worst though is watching young Harry Potter pretend he’s some sort of Bond villain. You want to smack his silly smile and send him off to bed without dinner. Or better yet, you begin praying for Voldemort to win in the next sequel of Harry Potter films.