Now You See Me 2

This review may contain spoilers!

While not as good as the first film, this brilliant sequel certainly pulls out all the stops to keep you entertained. I would give Now You See Me 2 a 7.5/10.

This film is a real joy to watch, it blends tragic backstories, comedic scenes and mind-boggling magic in what is a rather spectacular plot. The story doesn't stray too far from the safety of what the last film did but that never really matters because you still find yourself hooked by this incredible cast of characters. The cinematography for this film is very smooth, particularly when tricks are being conducted. The special effects for the film are great and almost even a bit subtle, the fact you start just viewing them as magic tricks rather than special effects says a lot about the film. The score for the movie is a classic homage to the first film, that really powerful grandstanding backing music to these powerful performers.

Jesse Eisenberg, who played J. Daniel Atlas, really played up the vulnerabilities of his character's ego and ambition in this film; I think it was important to see this character humbled and redeemed to further the role and story. Mark Ruffalo, who played Dylan Rhodes, is a great central protagonist in this film; it was pretty good seeing him carrying around the pain of losing his father in this film. Woody Harrelson, who played Merritt and Chase McKinney, did a great job of playing these opposing twins; Merritt is a likeable jokester while Chase is an absolutely insane wild card. Dave Franco, who played Jack Wilder, gives one of the most sincere performances out of the cast; he does his best to play a character who is extremely grounded and eager to do well. Daniel Radcliffe, who played Walter Mabry, made for an interesting new antagonist to the Now You See Me franchise; I liked the unpredictability of his psychotic outbursts. Michael Caine, who played Arthur Tressler, was an antagonist that in a lesser actor's hands would have not made much of an impact with the amount of screen time they had; however Caine has screen presence for days and is thoroughly sleazy in his villainous role. Morgan Freeman, who played Thaddeus Bradley, has a great conflict with Ruffalo throughout the film; while I found the reveal of him being a member of the Eye predictable at the end I also appreciated the closure that came between Freeman and Ruffalo's characters. David Warshofsky, who played Agent Cowan, is a character I loved to hate; Warshofsky presents one of the only FBI characters who feels like an agent and he at the very least makes the FBI scenes a little more enjoyable. Tsai Chin, who played Bu Bu, was the perfect casting choice for one of the serene leaders of the Eye; it felt important to have a strong Chinese actor or actress for this film and Chin was without a doubt that stand out performance. William Henderson and Richard Laing, who played Young Dylan and Lionel Shrike respectively, presented a powerful opening scene to this film; seeing the backstory for Dylan was a very emotional quality to this film.

However the best performance came from Lizzy Caplan, who played Lula. Caplan is one of the new characters to the cast and she makes a tremendous impact from the get go. Her unorthodox humour and tendency to steal the scenes that she's in made her a fast favourite character in my book. I also liked that caplan showed that her role was working to try to find her place in the team, she isn't always the most confident but works hard to find her place amongst the Horsemen.

The ending for this film left a lot to be desired; there was a great build up but ultimately everything about any of the big reveals was fairly predictable, beyond that when the Horsemen got to the Eye Headquarters there were a few reveals that took away from scenes we'd watched earlier in the film. I really felt like the film had too many characters on it's plate and couldn't balance them all, especially when it came to the number of antagonists. There were a few scenes in this film that were 'off-beats' and jarred the film's pacing, the romance between Caplan and Franco was extremely forced for instance. I also wasn't a big fan of the soundtrack, this is a problem with a few blockbusters these; there is a drive to use a wide range of songs that don't necessarily match what's going on in the film.

Jay Chou, who played Li, isn't a particularly necessary character to this film at all; Chou had very little screen presence and you tended to forget about him in the scenes he was in. Sanaa Lathan, who played Deputy Director Natalie Austin, was a very boring and generic role; Lathan's performance made the FBI's presence in this film one of the worst qualities. Henry Lloyd-Hughes, who played Allen Scott-Frank, played a character that I presume was supposed to be comedic but ultimately wasn't very funny at all; the reveal that his character was a member of the Eye severely undercut the scene he was in earlier in the film. Zach Gerard, who played Hannes Pike, was quite a forgettable minor role in this film; Gerard didn't really do anything to make himself stand out. Ben Lamb, who played Owen Chase, had some awful line delivery in this film; Lamb's performance was stiff and very basic.