Now You See Me 2

If you are a fan of fast-paced heist thrillers, this one's watchable if not as entertaining as the prequel.

Nothing quite as entertaining as the first film. And that's saying a lot more than I should. It'd take something of a magic trick to pull off a win with this one, despite some clearly winsome performances.

Now You See Me 2 is, in many ways, exactly the sort of sequel everyone dreads: Needless, uninspired and empty. Even with expectations in check, it somehow manages to disappoint. Like its flamboyant heroes, it relies on the notion that you are too dumb to notice illusion from reality.

Director Chu keeps the narrative moving at a smooth pace with Stan Salfas' editing which layers the visuals churned out by cinematographer Peter Deming's widescreen lensing and Brian Tyler's otherwise overstated score.  But overall, this film does not succeed to wow.

Now You See Me 2, on a whole doesn't work as a film, let alone a sequel. It uses lots of special effects, blinding visuals, blaring background score and one-liners to steer the audience away from its ridiculous, convoluted plot twists. What the makers forget is that the movie is ABOUT deception and not deceiving the audience.

The movie extends beyond necessity, and the final reveal does not create the excitement it means to. With on-going plans for a third movie, the franchise seems to have fallen prey to toxic sequelitis, and we can only hope that 3 works out to be the lucky number for the magicians.