SPOILER ALERT! Do not read unless you have already watched
Now You See Me 2!
I FINALLY watched the sequel to Now
You See Me last night. I loved act one—the four horsemen, getting back into
business, taking down another corporate evil guy with a brilliant succession of
amazing tricks, and then…an evil mastermind disrupts their show, kidnaps them,
and they wake up across the world in Macau where they are roped into doing
another heist. All of that was great. We have a new villain, the horsemen are
far from home, devoid of support, the Eye is who knows where, and they have to
figure out what to do next. Putting familiar characters WAY out of their
comfort zone is a brilliant plot device.
Opening setup—awesome. Follow up to the amazing setup—not so
awesome. (Except for the fight scene between Rhodes and Walter’s goons in the
market. I LOVED that scene) I realized that the very things that made the first
movie so exciting were the same things that unfortunately sabotaged the sequel.
First of all, the four horsemen were characters that are WAY
too competent for their own good. Or rather, far too competent for the good of
the story. The heists in the first movie and the Octo infiltration prove,
without a doubt, that these characters can break in ANYWHERE, in a heartbeat.
They are BRILLIANT. The hypnotism, especially, is like a free pass into any
secure institution, and they can use it so effortlessly. Because of their
skills, I knew that in act three, when they are “captured” for the second time by
Walter Mabry’s security forces in London, it had to be fake. I knew it because they
weren’t immediately ducking out of the handcuffs and using all of their
magician tricks to get away. Having characters that can infiltrate anything,
and duck out of handcuffs without even blinking is really difficult when
setting up a story because they can, in all seriousness, get out of whatever
situation you put them into. As a writer, having characters that are WAY too
competent can be a nightmare because it’s so hard to put them in real danger.
So as a writer myself, I completely understand why this movie stumbled a bit in
that area. Figuring out how to have tension and danger with overly competent
characters is HARD.
Second, and this is another area where the film suffers from
the success of the first, when EVERYTHING is a trick, it’s impossible for the
audience to suspend disbelief. When you have two movies that are both supported
by a foundation of the biggest “Ha ha! I got you!” ever, then by the time you
get to the climax of the second movie and we think they’re being thrown out of
the airplane, I already know that it’s all a trick, it’s not real, and so, none
of the danger feels real, and I end up tapping my foot impatiently, wishing
that the movie would hurry up and get to the big reveal. Which means…all the
enjoyment of the scene goes out the window. And again, this is another issue
that would make a writer want to rip his/her hair out. If the audience already
knows that everything is a trick, then how in the world do you convince them,
or trick them, that what is happening is real? It’s a horrendously difficult story
problem. Again, as a writer, I can understand why the story stumbled.
The third problem was that in the end, the biggest plot
twist was that there sort of wasn’t any villain at all because Thaddeus had
planned the entire thing from beginning to end, including dropping the safe
with Rhodes inside into the water, just so that Rhodes could fully come to
terms with his past. In the first movie, having a seemingly innocent character
be revealed as the mastermind at the end (Agent Rhodes) was an amazing plot
twist. But because Thaddeus was in control the whole time, you realize that
villainous Walter was just a pawn in his own game, which means he was never a
real threat. EVERYTHING was a setup from the very beginning, and that cheapened
the victory that the horsemen won over Walter in act three.
The fourth problem was confusing character motivations. The
first instance where I really noticed it was when Walter throws Rhodes into the
magician’s safe and they toss him into the water. Now, yes, using the safe to
kill Rhodes is a brilliant piece of poetic justice. Unfortunately, it’s poetic
justice with a couple of problems. First, Walter and his father wanted Rhodes
to help them locate the horsemen. So
stop and think for a second, what does Walter REALLY want? The chip. Who has
it? The horsemen. And because the horsemen are so skilled at disappearing,
Rhodes is their only link to the horsemen. Why in the world would you stuff
your best lead into a safe and drop it into the ocean? Even though killing
Rhodes is a satisfying revenge, it also means that Walter has lost his best chance
at finding the horsemen. They could have tortured him for information, or at
the very least, used him as a hostage so that they could trade him for the chip.
The safe thing was cool and exciting…but it didn’t really make sense.
The second,
big confusing moment was when I saw Thaddeus’s lushly furnished jail cell. That
visual proved that Thaddeus was in complete control of his environment and that
he could have left the prison whenever he wanted to. Again, the problem of
having a character that is too competent. If Thaddeus could leave whenever he
wanted, then why does he care about Rhodes and the four horsemen? Why does he
even need to go to Macau? Why does any of it matter to him? At the end, he’s
revealed as the mastermind and then his actions make more sense, but before you
get to that point, he’s portrayed as a villain out for revenge, and his choices
don’t really make sense. I wish Thaddeus had sold the act a little better.
And as a
final note, the whole stealing the chip sequence where they are passing and
tossing a card all over the room went on far too long. Not that it wasn’t fun
to watch, I just didn’t understand why it was necessary to keep it going for so
long—you get searched, the guards leave you alone, and then it would be safe
for you to keep holding the card, right? You don’t have to contort yourself
into knots to pass it to each member of the team three or four times, right?
All in all, very fun to watch, but
the logic holes in act three meant that the climax fell flat and the resolution
felt hollow. I salute the writers for wrestling with such a difficult story. I’d
definitely be willing to try out a third movie if it ever came out, in the
hopes that the writing team had a chance to figure out the right answers for
those difficult plot problems. 