Now You See Me 2 (2016) * *

Directed by:  Jon M. Chu

Starring:   Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Woody Harrelson, Daniel Radcliffe, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine

For those who thought Now You See Me wasn't preposterous enough, along comes Now You See Me 2.   The Horsemen, the high-tech magicians/thieves from the first film, are back and ready to take us through another plot that defies logic and sense.   These sorts of movies can be sly fun, like the Ocean's Eleven series, but Now You See Me 2 is so ludicrous that we shake our heads.   The plot winds its way through escalating levels of deception and misdirection.   The movie then stops dead at different points so characters can explain how exactly they deceived and misdirected so we can be in awe of their mad skills.

Some of the trickery here is inventive and some simply defies the laws of physics.    Characters disappear into thin air as soon as their captors have them cornered.     Others are hypnotized with the greatest of ease.     One of my questions I posed in my review of the first film was how exactly the Horsemen plan to break even with all of the money and resources devoted to their outlandish stunts.     Another was how they were able to set up their elaborate ruses while being chased by the FBI and every other crime fighting agency in the civilized world.      (And also not be noticed by ordinary citizens who just may have seen their faces plastered all over the internet, TV, and their cell phones).      I'm not supposed to ask these questions and go along for the ride, I know, but consider it a flaw of mine.  

In Now You See Me 2, the Horsemen and their leader Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo), who even after all that went down in the first film is inexplicably still an FBI agent pretending to be chasing the Horsemen, are kidnapped to do another heist.     Their captor is Walter Mabry (Radcliffe), a billionaire techno geek believed to be dead.   Why is he pretending to be dead?    The movie never fully explains, or even tries to.   Walter wants them to steal a microchip that can hack data from, let me make sure I get this right, every computer and cell phone on Earth.   You would think the existence of such a chip would not be so easy to find.   Or the chip itself would be so relatively easy to steal.   Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible movies had a tougher time stealing disks that merely contained lists.   Swiping this chip would be like a day off for him.  

Also lurking in the background is the now jailed Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), who was left holding the bag in the first film and subsequently jailed.    Dylan holds Bradley responsible for the death of his father, who died years ago in a tragic magic trick mishap that went wrong .   Bradley plays a big part in the events that follow. I would not dream of giving away how, but it is not believable nor logical.     Kind of par for the course in this film.

The grand finale turns up the preposterous a notch or three.     Are we to believe the Horsemen are able to perform their tricks in front of dazzled London crowds for as long as they do?   Are we to believe all of this way somehow a well-oiled plan?   Who paid for this?    And wasn't it nice of the FBI and Interpol to be just far enough behind so the Horsemen can take a few minutes to explain to the crowd how they masterminded and executed their coup-de-grace?     How did they know the crowd would be in that exact place at the exact time?     My head is about to explode.

As silly as all of this is, the actors do what they can and there are many good ones here.     Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are Oscar winners.    Ruffalo, Harrelson, and Eisenberg are former Oscar nominees.   Radcliffe is a suitably arrogant and sneaky bad guy with a beard.   They sell this stuff as well as anyone could sell it.    And it doesn't drag as it gives us whiplash from all of the swerves and Big Reveals.     I could have practically rewritten my review of the original film and barely have to change a word.