Reviews

The first "Now You See Me" was a personal guilty pleasure, it was fun, fast-paced and clever, with the help of a talented cast, good characters, and a complex story. The sequel didn't have the same clever elements of the first, and there was a subplot about a twin of one of the characters that added nothing to the film - if they had left that out in favor of a different conflict they might have had room for something else - perhaps an ending more like the first, with a lot more flash and spectacle. Oh, and Woody Harrelson in a wig, playing a fey version of himself - not a good idea. If they are in fact doing a third, they'd be wise to look at the first again.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to like it, I kept trying to warm up to it. I love Sherlock Holmes (I read every story). I liked the first Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, showing the more physical side of Holmes,(if you've read the books you'd know he'd occasionally wander the streets), as well as Watson (an army surgeon, he'd have been more physical, and smarter, than the way he was portrayed in earlier movie versions.) And I really enjoy the BBC version - Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Rupert Graves do a great job. I like Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu and Aidan Quinn. I like new takes on old formulas, but this just isn't doing it for me. I don't mind the more manic side of Holmes, but in this version it's virtually taken over. Some of that is seen in the BBC version, but there's a charm to Cumberbatch's portrayal that is lacking here. (Even when he's doing really terrible things - what he does to Watson in Hound of the Baskerville verges on sadistic.) And Lucy Liu's Watson just isn't jelling for me. I think declaring straight out that there will be no emotional relationship between the two is great - that would have been too predictable - but there's no emotional connection at all, not even mutual respect. Some of the plots are almost too convoluted as well. Maybe it'll take a while for the series to grow into its characters, but I'll be waiting elsewhere.