Now You See Me 2 (2016)

That huge ensemble of characters from number one, all deeply earnest about their craft - magic - which unites them in a fraternity as boysy, ridiculous and self-important as the Illuminati, reunites for this preposterous sequel that pits the Four Horsemen in a magic war with a tech wizard, except this is cinema magic, not magic magic, so there is no 'reveal' to justify the movie's long tangled string of events and you can't possibly care about what happens given the "anything goes" nature of the plot and the fact it all goes on in a one-note bombastic patter and that everything, even years in jail, might simply, quite ridiculously, be part of the slow burn.

★★☆☆☆

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Now You See Me (2013)

David Copperfield-esque magicians perform an Oceans Eleven style grift and arouse the interest of police and from there, over a series of subsequent grifts, this entertaining romp escalates the stakes to preposterous levels, particularly when real danger arrives in the form of car chases and carelessly fired guns, surely not in balance with the magicians' endgame, you'll think, even before you know what that is...

★★★☆☆

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