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The Now You See Me 2 trailer makes even Daniel Radcliffe unmagical
When people say Hollywood is out of ideas, it’s probably because of movies like Now You See Me 2, a movie that stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo and Daniel Radcliffe.
When people say Hollywood is out of ideas, it’s probably because of movies like Now You See Me 2. The second trailer was released and things aren’t looking good for the Four Horsemen.
The teaser trailer worked just fine. We were willing to overlook iffy decisions like replacing Isla Fisher’s character with Lizzy Caplan’s, basically retreading the plot of the original, and shoehorning in Morgan Freeman. But this new trailer is just all kinds of bad. Let’s talk about it.
But watch it here first
Tired jokes can be funny, but there’s nothing unfunnier than when they don’t land. And this trailer begins with two of them. While Isla Fisher’s replacement seemed like a minor issue initially, this new trailer doesn’t make any effort to introduce Lizzy Caplan’s character, thereby failing to back up the movie’s decision to add her to the team. From what we are shown here, her only power seems to be conjuring up doves. Which brings us to another big problem with Now You See Me 2: This no longer looks like plain old magic tricks. It does, however, look like these guys have actual superpowers. And that isn’t what this series was supposed to be about.
And then there’s the blatantly cynical decision to go and shoot the thing in China. Sure, China’s box-office is booming and many Hollywood tentpoles are filming there to get in on that racket, but all that does for this movie is make it seem even more unnecessary than before. It’s just lazy and outright greedy attempt to churn out nonsense just to make a profit.
Which brings us to Daniel Radcliffe and his thinly veiled villainous d-bag. His plan sounds like something a four-year-old came up with. It has something to do with stealing the key to every computer system in the planet. Not even kidding.
Most of the cast is back, though. Bored and lifeless versions of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo and Dave Franco have returned, with newcomers Jay Chou and Sanaa Lathan. The movie’s directed by Jon M Chu and arrives on June 10.
The posters look great though. So there’s that.
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