Now You See Me 2 (2016)

Rated. Running time: 2 hour 9 min.

Our content ratings (1-10): Violence 3; Language 2; Sex/Nudity 2.

Our star rating (1-5): 2.5

This adventure tale is a good excuse for taking out a loan to buy theater popcorn and then sitting in the dark to watch the improbable shenanigans. Director Jon M. Chu’s sequel, the ending of which promises another one, is about a group of magicians called The Horsemen operating just outside the law who fight against CEO Owen Case who is about to launch a smart phone tech program called Octa, which will end all privacy by enabling Case to steal his clients’ information.

The plot, which takes The Horseman from New York to Macao, is way too complicated to go into here, as are the magic tricks that each of the Horsemen (and a newly joined Horsewoman) employ. Some of them are delightfully deceptive, such as when persons dive into a tube atop a building in Manhattan, suddenly black out, and wake up on the other side of the world in Macao. “How did they do that?” we ask, and the eventual explanation is an enjoyable one. Unlike the scene in which the gang, having snuck into a computer room, throws around playing cards and a computer chip to one another, thus eluding the thugs searching their bodies, this geographical trick is possible, and very clever. Many of The Horseman’s quick illusionary tricks are clearly enhanced by C.G.I. enhancement. No human could pull off the tricks that flash before our eyes!

The cast– Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, and Mark Ruffalo–seem to be having fun, and so do we. However there is nothing in the flimsy story to take home, unless you didn’t eat all of your expensive popcorn.

No discussion questions for this piece of fluff.