The concept of the original Now You See Me felt fresh and interesting, and the 2013 film directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine was a great movie to kick back and suspend disbelief to. Just three months ago, NYSM2 hit theaters and saw Isla Fisher replaced by Lizzy Caplan playing Lula, a skilled magician who develops a faint but implied relationship with Dave’s character in this sequel that sees the intensity and scale of the magic trips taken to new heights.
As far as sequels go, you should definitely watch Now You See Me before partaking in this new film as most of the cast makes a return and NYSM2 builds on what was established in the first outing in several ways. A major new actor to NYSM2 is Daniel Radcliffe as Walter Mabry, who will inevitably remind you of Harry Potter. His was a role that, along with Lula’s, felt borderline unnecessary and forced, but ultimately works out to either the benefit of the movie, or at least not significantly in the detriment of it. Radcliffe plays the spoiled and ill-intentioned son of Michael Caine’s character, who is also ultra rich and morally broke. Together the duo are intent on capitalizing on some dangerous new tech that Radcliffe’s character is trying to bring to market, but The Four Horsemen, coming out of hiding a year after the events in the first movie, band together to use their unique skills to bring a stop to them.
Like a good magic show, NYSM2 does a nice job of telling an apparent story that is easy and fun to follow, while simultaneously, weaving an interesting tale right in front of the viewer without them noticing. This leads to many ‘ah ha’ moments and a really nice ending scene between some of the key characters that makes the third film, already in production according to IMDB, even more intriguing. Lionsgate has a good thing going here, my hope though is that they dial back some of the magic and tongue-in-cheek humor; like having Woody Harrelson play both Merritt and his goofy twin brother felt kind of cheap and (here’s that word again) unnecessary. Similarly, much of the final act just felt too over the top and asked the viewer to really suspend disbelief for a prolonged period — in other words, you just really had to turn off a lot of your common sense and just roll with whatever was thrown at you and hope for the best outcome. The result was a fun and worthwhile sequel, but one that does not offer as much enjoyment or replay value as the first, and left a considerable amount of room for improvement.
The 4K UHD + BD home release presents an interesting value for the majority of the market who have 1080p Blu-ray capability but may not yet have a 4K UHD, HDR-capable TV and player yet. Included in this release are two discs, the 4K UHD one which has nothing except the movie, and the standard Blu-ray that contains the film and a few HD bonus features. Interestingly, and I’m surprised I even noticed this as I was going through both discs, the 4K disc has a French Dolby 5.1 track that is not found on the standard Blu-ray.
As far as presentation quality goes, NYSM2 in 4K HDR looks really good, but I was somewhat underwhelmed overall. The film offers some flashy scenes, nothing on the order of full-on sci-fi though, so to be fair this isn’t the most interesting visual content inherently anyway. I watched the 4K version and then did some scene-by-scene comparisons with the standard Blu-ray and while you can see a difference, it’s not as dramatic as you might hope for. Some minor grain, so-so contrast at times, and a general lack of oomph keeps the 4K presentation in check, and while generally very good it’s definitely short of jaw-dropping. The Blu-ray on the other hand is very serviceable for what it is, and I think any average viewer would find both films presented in appreciable detail at the end of the day.
Dolby Atmos in English are the main tracks provided for each disc along with Spanish and French 5.1 (French only on the 4K disc). There is a English 2.0 track too, and, interestingly, it’s mixed for “late night listening” which I thought was a forward-thinking and cool track to include, especially for those folks with other people in the same dwelling. While I’m not an audiophile by any means, and accordingly I do not have what most would consider a high end home setup (it’s 7.1 surround at least), the Atmos tracked was quite impressive. The technical quality and presentation thereof I really can’t complain about, however the remixed title theme is not as good as the original, I would say that, but that’s subjective and not based on the quality of the Atmos mix.
Moving on to extra features then, as noted earlier the 4K disc is barren of these but the Blu-ray disc contains a few nice ones:
-Audio Commentary track with Director Jon Chu
-Featurette: “You Can’t Look Away” – Just over seventeen minutes with a focus on the appearance of the film, the cinematography there of and effects.
-Featurette: “Bringing Magic to Life” – Clocking in at a few seconds over sixteen minutes, we’re swarmed with a variety of cast and crew (maybe too many), including David Copperfield as each chimes in about magic, filming magic for a movie, comparisons to how magic acts are similar to dance routines, the intense practice that the key actors had to go through — it’s actually all pretty interesting and it’s neat to see the production footage of the cast learning from real magicians.
-Featurette: “The Art of the Ensemble” – Over twenty-one minutes on the inescapable fact that both this movie and the original rely on the performances of a large main cast. If you were to ask me I would say Mark Ruffalo is the primary role, but you could just as easily argue for Jesse Eisenberg. Regardless, it’s nice to see a film with such a shared spotlight, and this feature delves into that idea.
With that, let’s get to the summary…
