Director: Jon M. Chu

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

Synopsis: The elusive group of magicians who call themselves ‘The Four Horsemen’ are pulled out of hiding to protect themselves from their newest threat. Forced to work for a new technology genius, they must pull off their biggest heist yet.

The Good: Mark Ruffalo. He has to be one of my favourite actors at the moment, and did well to add some emotional investment into his smaller storyline. His ‘fight scene’ in the market place was one of the few instances were the film’s magical aspect worked well. Lizzy Caplan wasn’t a bad replacement for Isla Fisher, but I reckon Fisher did well to jump off this sinking ship of a sequel.

The Bad: The ‘magical’ element of the film was completely lost in too much CGI. I’m not saying that all the tricks in the original film were 100% real, but they felt like they had a sense of plausibility within the ‘real world’ setting. Here, the tricks were trying too hard to have a new wow-factor and relied heavily on special effects. The magic went beyond any form of believable and just became ridiculous and detached from the rest of the film. I would have preferred to see actual magicians doing actual tricks rather than a bunch of actors flicking their arms and having CGI playing cards appear.

The Ugly: The general feeling surrounding of the entire story was just that it was lost in trying to play too many tricks. It is difficult to watch scene after scene knowing that what we are seeing is some illusion, and it will later be altered and re-explained. The story became lost within itself as too many attempts at tricks or revelations marred any chance at getting on board with the film. The dialogue was way too long and convoluted to the point where I was clock watching at the end. Oh and I have no idea why Woody Harrelson had to have his own ‘twin’ in this, which cheapened the film to an even lower low.

Rating: 2/5