Movie Review: Now You See Me and Now You See Me 2

So, in between updates on the latest story, I've decided to review another movie, or rather, another pair of movies, both because I have a lot I've wanted to say about these two movies in particular (this being the only real outlet I have for that) and because some of my readers actually seem to like this. To wit, my review of Now You See Me 1 and 2.

Warning! The Following Review Includes an In-depth discussion of the plots of both films. If you have not seen either or both films, you have been warned...

It may seem strange to review both these films together. But I'm not simply doing it because they're a series. In a sense, any discussion of the second film (currently in theaters) hinges on a detailed understanding of the first film, which came out three years ago. More importantly, I think it's more effective to view them less as individual works of a franchise and more as two parts of a single film, because that's essentially what it is. Now You See Me 2 is less of a standalone film than it is the missing third act of the original one.

For those of you needing a refresher, the first film plays like this...

Four amateur magicians: Danny Atlas, a street magician and illusionist; Merritt McKinney, a mentalist and hypnotist; Henley Reeves, an escape artist and former assistant to Danny; and Jack Wilder, an all-around sleight of hand expert; are called together by a mysterious benefactor to collaborate as The Four Horsemen, working on behalf of a mysterious organization called The Eye, which apparently consists of magicians who use their skills and talents for acts of vigilantism. With the backing of an insurance magnate, Arthur Tressler, they go on a series of performances, starting with one where they rob a bank in France from a stage in Las Vegas. FBI agent, Dylan Rhodes, is tasked with finding out how they did it and capturing them, securing the help of professional debunker, Thaddeus Bradley to help explain the mechanics behind the Horsemen's seemingly impossible feats of larceny. As the movie progresses, the Horsemen turn on Tressler and go on to perform additional thefts, each one seeming to have some justice-related motive behind it. At the end, it is revealed that they were working (unknowingly) with the help of a fifth Horseman, none other than Dylan Rhodes, actually Dylan Shrike, who organized the Horsemen's performances, both to serve as their initiation into The Eye and to complete a decades long plan of revenge against the people he felt were either responsible or profited from his father's death in an escape trick gone horribly wrong.

I absolutely loved Now You See Me, mainly for many of the reasons that it received a firm drubbing from critics for many of its out of left-field elements and sudden turns that seem to come out of nowhere. From a conventional movie and storytelling perspective, the movie doesn't really work all that well. However, from a thematic perspective, it's ideal for a film that's centered around magicians, magic, and misdirection. It's a narrative magic trick, the writing equivalent of the escape act that Henley performs in her introductory scene, making the audience to look at the story one way and draw their own conclusions, only for the story to go in a completely different direction.

From the promotion and the opening scenes, we're led to believe that The Horsemen are our main characters and that this movie will play out rather like a traditional heist film, only one where the thieves are stage magicians using their magic show to cover their thefts, while staying one step ahead of their targets and the Law as it comes after them. Instead, it soon becomes clear that this is Dylan's story as he's forced to overcome his manifest skepticism at the Horsemen's tricks and learn to think outside the box. While heist flicks generally play from the thieves' perspective, this movie instead plays the angle of the agents of the Law playing catch-up with the criminals. Then, in the final moments of the film, we are thrown for another loop when it's revealed that Dylan himself was behind the whole thing from the beginning and, not only was he leading on Bradley, Tressler, and his fellow agents, but the audience themselves as to the true nature of the film, revealing that it was not merely a heist plot, but a revenge plot as well. It's the ideal play for a film that's all about subverting or even outright breaking expectations, as well as the rules of screenwriting and storytelling as we know them.

The second movie starts off where the first one pretty much left off. The Horsemen have been in hiding for a while, with Daniel getting impatient and chafing under the fact that he has to follow Dylan's orders, despite considering himself to be the leader of The Horsemen. Henley has departed due to conflict with Daniel and we are quickly introduced to her replacement, the bubbly, morbidly hilarious, Lula May. Under Dylan's direction, the team reassembles for another performance, this time outing a smartphone developer who plans to sell his customers' private information on the black market. However, their performance is hijacked and The Horsemen are kidnapped by an evil sociopath who wants them to use their skills to help with his diabolical plans, while Dylan is forced to partner with Thaddeus in order to track down his missing team and help them escape their predicament and turn the tables on their foes.

From the start, the second movie feels like a natural continuation of the first, in that it's almost literally the missing portion of the first film. Because the first movie was centered around Dylan, The Horsemen themselves received minimal development with most of their scenes focusing on their tricks in action and the secrets behind their magic than themselves as characters. In this film, all four of them are forced to confront their personal issues and limitations and then come together as a team, rather than being four individual performers putting on a single show using someone else's script. Daniel is forced to confront his control issues and earn the others' respect and trust, Merritt and Jack learn to put their trust in their leader, and Lula makes up for Henley's absence by working to establish herself and earn her place properly as the new Fourth Horseman, while all of them work to improve and broaden their skills as magicians. In the meantime, Dylan does additional growth as he moves beyond the decades-long revenge plot that motivated him throughout the events of the first movie and becomes the leader and guide that the Horsemen need. In this sense, this movie is essentially a conclusion, an extra act to the first movie.

Even other characters get their moment. Thaddeus shows unexpected depth, revealing that, not only was he a partner to Dylan's father, but also the current leader of The Eye, secretly using The Horsemen's plight to help Dylan move beyond petty revenge and into greater things. Arthur Tressler makes his return as well, going from a dickish insurance owner known for stiffing his clients of their claims (pretty classic for his type of character) to an unquestionably evil figure who is working with his, horrifyingly sociopathic, illegitimate son to get lethal revenge on The Horsemen.

The movie also happens to include one of the best and most creative fight scenes in recent memory, where Dylan takes on the main villain's cadre of Chinese thugs using an arsenal of magic tricks and gimmicks to throw them off and gain the upper hand. It's brilliantly executed and pretty much worth the price of admission all on its own.

And, once again, the story is another magic trick. However, thanks to the first movie, anyone who comes in to watch this one does so with the knowledge that it's going to be one, that any rules that are laid out are there to be broken and that any expectations the film is likely to raise will probably be dashed later on and that the conclusion will be something we weren't expecting. As watchers, we come in expecting the writers to cheat us and turn everything on its head. The film counters this by changing up the kind of magic trick the story is supposed to be. Where the first movie was a "look over there" disappearing and reappearance act, the second one is a narrative shell game, playing out very much like the life-sized card trick that Jack performs in the sequence of events leading up to the movie's climax. We're constantly kept on our toes, questioning who are the manipulators, who's being manipulated, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and what end everyone is being guided to. Just like a well-performed shell game confidence trick, even when you know it's a scam, you still do your best to try and figure out what's going on and keep track of the ball that is the movie's plot as it moves from one position to another, knowing full well that your guess is probably going to be wrong because you know that the person playing with the cups will cheat and use every trick in the book to turn your expectations against you. It's an excellent way to keep the audience engaged right up to the very end, when the movie can finally pull back the curtain and not only show what cup the ball was under, but all the underhanded tricks they used to keep you from figuring it out and ensure that you guessed wrong.

Which isn't to say that the movies don't have their weaknesses. To start off, both films heavily abuse the Once More With Clarity trope, with nearly every major trick shown twice, with the second scene always existing to show what really happened. It's important since it's the best way to show the cleverness behind the magic and deceptions at work. But structurally speaking, it gets repetitive after a while. Merritt's hypnosis skills go from impressive in the first film to absurd in the second film, along with those of his equally (if not more) talented brother, who's playing on the bad guys' team. The first movie does a good job of glossing over the involved process of inducing a hypnotic trance whenever Merritt actually does it, which is for the best as real hypnotists have to work to put their subject into the proper state, which can take several minutes. In the second film, Merritt and his brother (and, later, Jack) can put people into a trance with a few words or a spinning pizza box. The second movie's climax is heavily dependent on ignoring the fact that the setup for the Four Horsemen's big final trick would have, by necessity, involved hundreds of people and tens of hours of labor to pull off (at least), which they somehow manage to do very much on the quick. The revelation that Thaddeus was secretly the partner of Dylan's father opens up a massive plot hole where one can't help but ask if Thaddeus and Dylan's dad were such great buddies for so long, why did Dylan's dad never introduce young Dylan to his bestie?

Thematically, the second film's greatest weakness is that it ultimately ends up contradicting its own premise, the idea that the story is about the Four Horseman learning to mature and grow as magicians, growing beyond having someone simply hold their hands and guide them through their acts, only for the final scenes of the movie to reveal that they've been having their hands held and that they've been led through the whole plot the entire time, the one moment where the shell game nature of the plot does itself a disservice.

The only other issue I have is purely personal. It's not so much a complaint as one of those jarring moments where your real life intrudes upon the fantasy world of films. There are times when I truly regret ever working in retail, largely because I keep recognizing products that I sell when characters are using them, and not in the classic product-placement sense. This is exemplified in Now You See Me 2, when Tressler and his son have locked Dylan in a safe and are preparing to dump him in a river in a dramatic and villainous reenactment of the trick that killed his father. During the scene, I kept getting my engagement interrupted by the fact that the villainous duo were enjoying a spot of tea while they were doing this, which wouldn't have been an issue if not for the fact that I recognized the damn china pattern they were using. Renaissance Gold by Wedgewood, if you were wondering. Ugh...

Anyway, in conclusion, Now You See Me and Now You See Me 2 are both great films, well worth watching. The second one is currently in theaters, but works best if you've seen the first one already. So, if you haven't, I recommend you rent or buy the first movie before going to see the second one.

Comments

[laser68]

You somehow managed to take a movie i hated and make it sound good. uggggg. I really do not want to force myself to watch the second one