2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for profanity and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.10.16
A good magician knows when to get
off the stage, and how to leave an audience wanting more.
This film fails on both counts.
 |
| After being transported halfway around the world in a manner they can't comprehend, the Four Horsemen — from left, Jack (Dave Franco), Lula (Lizzy Caplan), Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and Merritt (Woody Harrelson) — are about to confront their captor. |
That said, director Jon M. Chu is
quite accomplished at another technique favored by magicians: repeatedly
distracting us with inconsequential glitz, noise and plenty of flash, as a
means of concealing the true ruse ... the fact that Ed Solomon’s confused, cluttered
and ultimately contradictory screenplay doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Like so many other overblown,
empty-calorie sequels, this one’s all sound and fury, signifying absolutely
nothing. When we finally see what’s behind the curtain — and a bewildering,
exposition-heavy epilog provides just such a scene — the letdown is palpable.
Sure, it’s fun to watch — sort of
— but the joy is fleeting (although, at 129 minutes, not fleeting enough). But
goodness; must frothy popcorn entertainment be so brain-dead?
Character development wasn’t a
strong (card) suit in 2013’s Now You See
Me, but at least some effort was
made. Solomon wrote the script for that one as well, but he worked from a story
by Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt. This time, Solomon also co-wrote the story,
with Pete Chiarelli; both apparently decided that granting their stars anything
approaching actual human behavior would have been superfluous.
Thus, the personalities of this
sequel’s so-called “Four Horsemen” can be boiled down to single words: J.
Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) is arrogant; Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson)
is smug; Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) is bashful; and Lula (Lizzy Caplan) is
reckless.
Attentive viewers may realize
that Lula is a newcomer, replacing the first film’s Henley Reeves, played by
Isla Fisher. No doubt the latter took one look at this new script, said words
to the effect of “Are you kidding?”
and bolted. More power to her.
For all its far-fetched
frivolity, the first film offered a reasonably tight narrative that played fair
with its audience: The twists were honorable, character motivations ultimately
reasonable — mostly good, old-fashioned revenge — and the opulent legerdemain almost credible, in an over-produced,
Las Vegas-y way.
This second time out, Solomon
betrays the first film’s clever and tidy resolution by re-writing it: What we thought was true ... isn’t. While that
might have been a great trick if he pulled it off, it becomes increasingly
annoying as he clumsily fails. This sequel’s characters spend a lot of time
telling each other — which is to say, telling US — what’s happening, and why.
Said-bookism is boring.
Solomon obviously missed another
important, counter-intuitive lesson from the actual world of magic: Despite
what many of us insist, we really don’t like
to be told how the miracle works. The “secret” is inevitably anticlimactic, and
we get irritated by the (in hindsight) obvious deception.
Sad to say, Solomon generates a
lot of irritation here.
To cases:
Roughly a year has passed, since
the activities that took place in the first film. The three remaining Horsemen
have remained underground and out of the public eye (Henley’s absence explained
by some throwaway dialog). But they’re chafing: particularly Atlas, whose unchecked
ego is being stoked by mysterious messages from the unseen “master manipulator”
known only as The Eye.
FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark
Ruffalo) — revealed in the first film as the one who assembled the Horsemen,
and orchestrated their high-profile exposés of powerful but despicable
individuals and corporations — continues to lead a double life. By day, he
works alongside FBI Deputy Director Natalie Austin (Sanaa Lathan), supposedly
trying to find and catch the Horsemen; by night, he quietly assembles a profile
on their next target.
Atlas, meanwhile, receives an
unexpected visitor in the form of Lula: a “geek magician” who has built a
reputation by shocking audiences. Despite ever more outrageous stunts, she
remains best known for an early-career coup when she “pulled a hat out of a
rabbit,” a cliché that now embarrasses her (which is odd; you’d think she’d be
quite proud of such a signature accomplishment).
Lula has been selected by Dylan
as the new Fourth Horseman. Now alongside the others — Atlas, master of opulent
illusions and human psychology; Merritt, accomplished hypnotist; and Jack,
smooth pickpocket and seasoned card manipulator — she joins the team just in
time for their yearlong “retirement” to conclude.
Their new target is Hannes Pike
(Zach Gregory), a wealthy tech entrepreneur about to unveil a next-gen smart
phone guaranteed to be snapped up by a primed, ferociously loyal customer base.
(Think Apple acolytes on steroids.) Ah, but what the public doesn’t know — what
Dylan has found out — is that Pike’s new phone will be armed with a chip
that’ll clandestinely strip-mine all
user information, allowing him to sell a continuous stream of aggregate data to
the highest bidder.
Ergo, Pike obviously needs to be
stopped.
The Horsemen’s’ plan to upstage
Pike’s glitzy product launch begins well enough, but suddenly goes off the
rails. Forced to beat a hasty retreat, our heroes take advantage of their
well-planned escape route ... and unexpectedly, impossibly, wind up in the
kitchen of a restaurant. In Macau.
That’s a great moment of
disconnect, both for the Horsemen, and for us. Too bad Solomon spoils it mere
minutes later, by telling us what actually happened.
The “telling” is done by Walter
Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), an amoral tech genius hiding out in a Macau high-rise.
The world believes him dead, which has allowed him to manipulate stocks and
people invisibly, via proxies. All quite illegal, as Lula points out, but
Walter couldn’t care less. More to the point, he’s the former partner of Pike,
who, Walter insists, stole that crucial chip from him.
Walter wants it back. And he’ll
expose and/or kill the Horsemen, and Dylan, if they don’t develop and execute a
glitzy heist to accomplish that very task.
Up to this point, the goal and
threat(s) are fairly easy to follow. Moving forward, though, the tricks,
twists, duplicities, crosses, double-crosses, triple-crosses and sidebar
obfuscation become baffling, then tedious, and ultimately quite irritating.
It’s impossible to care about anything or anybody, because we know it’s all smoke and mirrors.
More to the point — with the
notable exception of Ruffalo’s Dylan — all of these characters are as thin as a
playing card, so we don’t care a jot for them.
In fairness, the film offers a
few engaging sequences. Visits to Iong’s Magic & Co. — an actual,
real-world highlight in Macau (although amped-up quite a bit here) — are a lot
of fun. These detours also introduce two new characters: co-proprietors Li
(Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou) and the venerable Bu Bu (Tsai Chin).
The slickest bit of
improvisational magic involves heisting the aforementioned chip, conveniently
sized to fit on the back of a playing card. Chu and editor Stan Salfas superbly
choreograph the acrobatic ballet that takes place as the Horsemen, amidst
thorough body searches by guards, keep passing the card back and forth.
This bit works because it’s easy
to understand; we delight in the execution, even as we forgive its complete
absurdity. Would that the rest of Chu’s film had similar energy.
Less successful: Harrelson’s dual
performances as Merritt and his even more irritating twin brother, Chase, who
has a long-festering grudge against his sibling, and has allied with Walter.
One smug Woody Harrelson performance is bad enough; two is beyond endurance.
A quick look at the cast list
also promises return appearances by Michael Caine, as scheming gazillionaire
Arthur Tressler; and Morgan Freeman, as magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley, and
avowed enemy of the Horsemen. Their involvement won’t be discussed, lest I be accused
of spoilers ... but chances are, you won’t find them satisfying.
Ultimately, Now You See Me 2 falls victim to the sophomore curse that afflicts
so many sequels mandated more by commerce than narrative necessity. Chu,
Solomon & Co. succumb to the “bigger is better” mentality, emphasizing the
vacuous spectacle while ignoring the character elements (minor though they may
have been) that gave the first film some heart. We see this time and again, the
transition from Home Alone to Home Alone 2 being a particularly
notorious example.
Clearly, Hollywood never learns.
I note that Chu and Solomon
already are attached to Now You See Me 3.
I’ll try to contain my excitement.
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