tjlisson Review of Now You See Me 2

Now You See Me 2 (2016)

Unbelievable — And Not In A Good Way

[4/10 · 11 June 2016]

This film is undeniably visually dazzling, arguably to the point of being exhausting. But what I'm taking from this dubious new genre, if you could call it that, is that filmmakers shamelessly exploit and yet devalue the nature of real-life illusionism (i.e. "magic"), in which the magician actually has to make something work that looks impossible or highly unlikely (it's a trick), by making use of the nearly endless possibilities of film, in which things that would be impossible in real life can actually be accomplished on screen. So we get things like Lizzy Caplan apparently vanishing into thin air in Atlas's apartment, and since magicians, of course, don't divulge how they accomplish their tricks, the film takes advantage of this by doing things that in all likelihood really are impossible — no explanations or credibility necessary.

Since we all know that you can do all these things in the movies anyway, what's the point of making them into magicians, when you can watch a Harry Potter movie and you don't really have to wonder how people in paintings can move?