This was 1 of my most anticipated sequel this year. The original was released back in 2013 and I truly loved that one. Hence, when I saw the trailer to the sequel, my wife and I decided to watch this one at the earliest screening. So when it premiered yesterday, and coincidentally my wife's supposed function was rescheduled, she was able to buy the tickets for 6.25 PM show. Lucky for me I still managed to get to the studio on time despite the heavy traffic when I went back home due to the fasting month. Anyway, let's continue to the story.
Brief Story Line
Story started with scene from 1984 where Lionel Shrike a very famous magician then, was trying to do an escaping act from a locked safe which was chained and dropped into a river, while Thaddeus (played by Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby, The Dark Knight and many others) was narrating in front of TV. The escape act was some kind of challenge from Thaddeus. Before the safe was thrown, Lionel still managed to speak to his son and ensuring him that as magician he would always have backup plan. Those of you who watched the original movie would know the outcome of this escaping act.
Moving to the current time, FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (played by Mark Ruffalo - Avengers, Foxcatcher etc) was trying to convince his new boss Agent Natalie (played by Sanaa Lathan - The Best Man, Alien Vs Predator etc) to allow him catching the 'Four Horsemen' whom he was unable to "catch" for doing heist and acting like Robin Hood in the original movie. Though Agent Cowan was suspicious of Dylan's involvement in the four horsemen's previous act, Dylan was allowed to capture them using his own personal time.
One of the Four Horsemen, Atlas (played by Jesse Eisenberg - Batman VS Superman etc) was having some contacts with "the eye", the supposed behind the scene organization that arranged for their acts few years before. Atlas was feeling that he should be the leader of the horsemen instead of Dylan, but he was told to wait. When Atlas got back to his home, he found a lady who seemed to be able to do lots of magic tricks named Lula (played by Lizzy Caplan - Cloverfield etc). She managed to escape from Atlas' house after he tried to capture her.
Atlas later went to meet the other horsemen Merrit McKinney (played by veteran Woody Harrelson) and Jack Wilder (played by Dave Franco - 21 Jump Street etc). They were introduced by Dylan to the newest member of the four horsemen, Lula who would replace Henley (Isla Fisher). Though the other three horsemen were surprised, but they followed Dylan's instruction to move on. Dylan later shared their next target of heist would be to infiltrate a tech company on the verge of releasing a new handphone which would download private data from the users.
During the launching of this new handphone, all of the four horsemen would show their talents including Lula the latest member. Meanwhile Dylan would operate from the outside. However, things went haywire when suddenly the FBI were able to find out about their plan and they had to escape.
The four horsemen who were now in Macau were met by the person responsible for their disclosure. They had no choice but to assist him acquiring a computer chip that can expose and delete any data from any computer from a seemingly impossible "fortress". For this heist, they would be provided with items from a magic store keeper named Li (played by Taiwanese actor/singer Jay Chou - The Green Hornet) and his aunt.
Due to the complexity of the story and the various plot twists, I will not be able to write any more without breaking some spoilers. Therefore, it would be better if you just continue watching and see whether these four horsemen can achieve their goal.
End of Brief Story Line
Watching this movie would put you into a sense of awe when the four horsemen were showing their act. There were 3 scenes of such cases, where the 2nd one was more tense because of the worry they could be caught, while the last scene was more awesome in the individual magic/illusion act. There was also a cool fighting scene involving Dylan with some thugs using his own ability to use illusions.
I like this movie and had good experience watching it. But if you asked me, personally I believe the original is more superior to this one. I guess maybe I was having too much admiration towards the original and felt that the elements of surprise was not so surprising here. I also think that the new Lula character was not too believable as a good magician, and I really believed there is no necessity in having the Chase character as a relative. He can be any random character and it would still make sense. Maybe the film maker just want to make it funny, though I think it's not necessary.
But of course, the illusions, the fast hands were the good part of this movie. I saw David Copperfield's name mentioned in the credit scene (not sure I remember the role, perhaps as consultant). There were also some funny moments in this movie.
If you are a fan of the original, this one may disappoint you a bit, but it is still an OK sequel and it's certainly a different type of genre altogether compared to comic book adaptations or plain action movies. If you have not watched the original, please ensure you watch it first before you watch this one, otherwise you will be left with wondering about the movie's plots.
Mike's movie moment rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
