2014's
Now You See Me was an unexpected hit that made $351 million worldwide on a budget of $75 million and so here we are, two years later, with what is ultimately an unnecessary sequel. There is no need for this movie to exist, there was no reason for these characters to have another similar adventure to that of the one they experienced in the first film and yet, because the dollars dictate it, The Four Horsemen have returned to give us another trip through the secret world of magicians and to point out just how detached from reality they've become if they think they can trick us into believing magicians would ever garner the kind of media attention they do here. I digress, but I can't help but to be a little perturbed by the fact there is a sequel to a film that was a perfectly smart and entertaining one off story that will now forever be tarnished by the existence of this unnecessary successor. In short,
NYSM2 is a whole lot of nonsense that doesn't necessarily go anywhere meaningful or comment on anything relevant, but in its defense is something of a crowd-pleaser. It is easy to see the broad appeal of what is at play here as all of the actors are engaging and clearly audiences enjoyed the first one enough to presumably show up and give what is essentially more of the same their money.
NYSM2 is a sequel in the tradition of those retreaded sequels that used to be the norm, before the whole expanded universe thing came along, and thus could serve as an example under the definition of guilty pleasure. There is nothing particularly fresh this movie intends to do with the premise and character traits that were defined in the first film, but more
NYSM2 desires to expand upon story aspects of the original to the point they no longer make as much sense or hold as much weight as they once did when this was a contained story. There might be new characters played by Daniel Radcliffe and Lizzy Caplan, but they aren't really new-they're just excuses to tread the same water the first film did with updated facades meant to trick the audience into thinking this sequel has something new and exciting to offer. Don't be fooled. There isn't much to see here. Though the film is more consistently funny than I expected and the rapport between the actors even smoother than before the final product still feels more like a magician blowing hot air at their audience for two hours rather than actually daring to dazzle us.
