Now You See Me 2 (2016)

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine

Director: John M Chu

You can’t be blamed, perhaps for turning your nose up at a sequel directed by the guy who did the Justin Bieber movie and Step Up 2. But I guess it’s useful as a tool to know what to expect.

Chu is not a bad guy, and this is not exactly a bad film. But it’s not exactly a good one either. It’s about what you’d expect from a sequel.

In this sequel, our favourite magician/thieves are back, and blackmailed by a tech giant to steal a device that he wants in their biggest heist ever.

Well, most of them are back. Isla Fisher decided not to return, and is replaced by Lizzy Caplan, who is very pretty and awkward, and appears to be operating in a different film than the rest of the cast, in performance style and tone. Woody Harrelson is just phoning it in, and appears to wish that he had gone the same way that Fisher did. His evil twin (also played by himself) is a pretty uncomfortable addition. On a whole, no one really seems to have any enthusiasm, but it still kind of works.

There’s something about watching magicians do their amazing feats that never really gets old. The plot in this film and the character dynamics are overly contrived, which gets really annoying, and the grandstanding is pretty cheesy, but those feats, which the plot just hangs off, are kind of ok. But without the chemistry and fun of the first film, nothing quite gels.

See It If: should please some fans of the first film, and is an ok watch if you’ve seen everything else that’s out.