Now, the makers of those movies understood what magic is all about better than the filmmakers of this one do. Movie magic is one thing, but that would have been better served in a different movie, like one with a kid with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. I mean, rain falling upwards? In London? Maybe on a stage somewhere but not out in the middle of the street. I think as I did with the first one that doing the magic with practical effects instead of digital would only have made the movie better. The stunts pulled by the Horsemen are, as the first, almost all CGI which again wounds the film terribly. I was entertained by the first but found myself yawning my way through the second. A good 15 minutes of screen time could have been erased from this too-long movie just by removing the twin. The unnecessary introduction of a twin brother gives Harrelson double the screen time and the film an extraneous character who not only wasn’t necessary to the plot but also provides an unwanted distraction. We know who he is and what role he plays and moreover, so do the Horsemen (although there’s a bit of a pissing contest between Daniel and Dylan about halfway through the film). Ruffalo is still, as ever, a bona fide Hollywood star but his role, outed in the first film, is less mysterious here and therefore less interesting. Instead it’s more like a three-point shot….from beyond half court. I mean, magicians who are crime fighters? Come on! That should be a slam dunk. More importantly, Caplan inserts some badly needed fun into a script that should have been loaded with it. Her character is witty, sassy and very capable as a magician. This sucker chugs along with tons of exposition then an elaborate magic trick before continuing to…you guessed it, more exposition.Ĭaplan is actually a delight here. It seems a lot less lively than the first both in tone and in pacing. If anything, the sequel is even lighter on the credibility but as far as the entertainment value is concerned…not so much, I’m afraid. The first movie was a frothy affair that was light on the credibility but heavy on the entertainment. It will take a whole lot more than a few magic tricks for this group to escape Mabry it will take a genuine miracle. Mabry also has sprung Thaddeus Bradley from jail and he has nothing but revenge on his mind. The chip is held in a super-safe location in Shanghai, so it’s off to China for the Horsemen, but Mabry has a couple of tricks of his own for one, Merritt’s identical twin brother is helping him stay one step ahead of the horsemen and Mabry is the bastard son of none other than Arthur Tressler (Caine), the insurance magnate whom the Horsemen exposed and nearly ruined in the first movie. They’re going to need the whole lot of them because they are up against Walter Mabry (Radcliffe), a tech billionaire whom the world also thinks is dead (the world has a terrible track record when it comes to dead guys) who wants them to steal a super secret microchip that will give him access to every computer on the planet. The Horsemen need a fourth and into the group comes Lula (Caplan), a street magician like Henley Reeves was although Lula is much more into the Grand Guignol than her predecessor. Dylan also has his late father Lionel Shrike (Laing) very much on his mind, particularly the stunt that killed him. Their nemesis Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman) rots in jail and FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) is trying to steer his boss Natalie Austin (Lathan) away from the Horsemen since he is their behind-the-scenes handler. Merritt McKinney (Harrelson) is trying to stay under the radar, Henley Reeves has left the group and Jack Wilder (Franco) has the world convinced that he’s dead. Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), the arrogant onstage leader of the Horsemen, is busy trying to investigate The Eye, the mysterious organization that controls them. All they lack is the spandex and the inclination to fight crime.Īt the end of Now You See Methe Four Horsemen – the Vegas magic act that was a kind of Robin Hood, taking money from a rich insurance company and giving it back to the thousands of people it defrauded – are on the lam.
Magicians are almost like real-life superheroes. We are fascinated by the concept of magic, of someone performing unexplainable feats of prestidigitation. (2016) Action ( Summit) Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Jay Chou, Sanaa Lathan, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, David Warshofsky, Tsai Chin, William Henderson, Richard Laing, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Brick Patrick, Zach Gregory, Ben Lamb, Fenfen Huang, Aaron Ly, James Richard Marshall, Alexa Brown. The rain falls on the just, the unjust and Jesse Eisenberg.
0 kommentar(er)
