Presto!

Back in 2013, Now You See Me was seen by audiences as a nice surprise and by critics as largely flashy but empty sleight of hand. Though I love it when audiences disagree with critics and make up their own minds, I didn’t care for the first movie. Thankfully, the sequel pulls a nice surprise of its own: being a vast improvement on the original.

Spoiler time for those who haven’t seen the first one: NYSM2 picks up a year later, with the Robin Hood-like magicians the Four Horsemen lying low, having formally joined secret magician society The Eye under Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), an FBI mole and man behind the curtain to the events of the first movie. They’re growing restless waiting for their next big assignment, while Rhodes plays dummy to distract the FBI. However, after they’re joined by new horsewoman Lula (Lizzy Caplan) and given a mission to expose a tech magnate whose cell phones will phish private user info to buyers, things go awry. Soon, the Horsemen are separated from their mentor, plagued by enemies old and new around the world, and Rhodes has to team up with an old foe to sort out the mess.

The biggest thing NYSM2 has over the first is it tells an actual story instead of an incoherent setup to one. There’s a big difference between mystery and confusion, and the first movie fell way on the confusion side, using twists to hide a muddled narrative. Here, we get to the actual concept: stage magicians using their talents to expose powerful crooks, liars, and thieves like a Vegas-bound Impossible Missions Force. And though the story told is your typical “good guys vs. bad guys,” being about magicians, it has more up its sleeve.

But that terrible excuse for a joke brings up the next big plus for the movie: It’s funny as hell. One-liners delivered by a talented cast abound, and the introduction of one of the main villains includes –– and I’m not kidding –– a hilarious slide show. Hell, who the villain is got an honest-to-God guffaw out of me. But by far the funniest and maybe the best thing about the movie is Woody Harrelson. Playing dual roles as hypnotist Merritt and his disgraced and villainous twin brother, Chase, whom the actor plays like an evil impersonation of his True Detective costar Matthew McConaughey, Harrelson is curly-haired and whispery-drawled hilarious. Humor also improves weaknesses from the first movie, like a few jokes at the expense of Eisenberg’s smug genius Daniel Atlas, taking the character down a few pegs to make him less of an intolerable douche and more an almost endearing character.

And the cast is great. Ruffalo and the actors playing the Horsemen have chemistry, and Caplan is a superior replacement for the first movie’s Isla Fisher, getting more to do and better lines. Returning actors like Morgan Freeman get to have a little fun, even though it sometimes feels like they’re just playing themselves or spouting exposition.

There are a few tradeoffs. The directing by Jon M. Chu (G.I. Joe: Retaliation and, woof, Jem and the Holograms) isn’t nearly as flashy as Louis Leterrier’s in Part 1. A fight scene in Macau, full of shakycam, does not compare to the apartment fight in the first flick, and some of the magic tricks are a little less fantastical. But that’s also not entirely bad, as the directing of the first often felt overly showy. Also, the magic tricks here are a bit more “believable,” in that you can see how a magician could pull one of them off, which makes them more exciting. The tricks in the first relied too much on CGI trickery and sci-fi levels of technology. There are still some plot holes, and a few tricks require unbelievable luck and timing to be accomplished, but the tradeoffs are for the better. Except for the fact that any TV in these movies is always tuned to Exposition News. That’s still annoying.

[box_info]Now You See Me 2
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Lizzy Caplan, and Dave Franco. Directed by Jon M. Chu. Written by Ed Solomon, Peter Chiarelli, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt. Rated PG-13[/box_info]