Posts Tagged ‘Woody Harrelson’

Fly Me to the Moon

Director: Greg Berlanti

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano, Jim Rash, Greg Kriek, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Nick Dillenburg

Running Time: 2 hours and 12 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Love Simon director Greg Berlanti delivers a delightful romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moon about the weeks leading up to NASA successful Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 which successfully culminated with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren landing on the moon.

With a catchy title Fly Me to the Moon, this summer romantic comedy focuses on the love and working relationship between marketing maverick Kelly Jones superbly played with gorgeous panache by the sassy Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story, Jo Jo Rabbit) and the dashing pilot Cole Davis played by Channing Tatum (The Lost City, Magic Mike XXL, Foxcatcher)  at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the launch site for Apollo 11 as they both prepare in different ways for the historic mission to the moon.

Kelly is all New York marketing and advertising and is hired by a mysterious government man Moe Berkus, a stand out performance by triple Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (The People vs Larry Flynt, The Messenger, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) who is supposedly working for President Nixon whose government needs a propaganda coup to galvanize the American public into supporting the mission to the moon, while discreetly distracting them from the horrific war in Vietnam.

Cole Davis is a straight laced pilot whose sole concern is the safety of his astronauts and their successful but tense mission to the moon. Davis is distracted by Kelly’s charm and unconventional approach to public relations.

NASA needs some good PR and Kelly and Berkus devise a secret plan to film a deep fake landing on the moon culminating in a film production lavishly directed by Lance Vespertine played with gay abandon by Jim Rash.

Fly Me to the Moon has some great comic moments including many scenes involving a slinky black cat, but the gem of the story is the onscreen chemistry between Tatum and Johansson bolstered by some stunning visual effects of the actual Apollo 11 taking off to the moon.

As Kelly Jones comes clean about her past to Cole Davis, their partnership both professionally and romantically blossoms in the beautiful setting of Cape Canaveral, Florida as Kelly secret directs Project Artemis at the request of the shady Berkus until a feline unseats the deep fake.

Delightful, superbly written and brilliantly conceived down to the late 1960’s production design, Fly Me to the Moon gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is recommended viewing as a thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy.

Triangle of Sadness

Director: Ruben Ostlund

Cast: Harris Dickinson, Woody Harrelson, Charlbi Dean, Zlatko Buric, Dolly De Leon, Hanna Oldenburg, Vicki Berlin, Alicia Eriksson, Sunnyi Melles

Running time: 2 hours and 27 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

From vacuous fashion models to the super wealthy stranded on a luxury yacht when things go awry, Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s savage satire on the selfie generation, the extreme fascination fueled by social media with affluence, luxury and beauty is fully explored with cynicism in his award winning film Triangle of Sadness which won the coveted Palme D’Or (Best Picture Prize) at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

British actor Harris Dickinson (The King’s Man, Where the Crawdads Sing) stars as Karl, a male fashion model whose beautiful looks and gorgeous body ensures that he does get out of any situation relatively unscathed. Karl is accompanied by the beautiful Yaya played by the late fashion model turned actress Charlbi Dean who came from Cape Town, South Africa who tragically passed away in New York City at the age of 32 in August just three months after the Triangle of Sadness’s electrifying premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022.

The first section of the film focuses on the shifting gender dynamics in the complex relationship between Karl and Yaya as they argue who is going to pay for the bill at an expensive European restaurant. The real grit of the film starts in the second section of the film whereby Karl and Yaya have won passage aboard a luxury superyacht as influences whereby they meet an array of extremely wealthy people all of whom have gained their affluence through dubious means from manufacturing hand grenades to cornering the Eastern European market on fertiliser.

Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (The People vs Larry Flynt, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri) appears briefly as the reckless ship’s captain as he is mostly drunk when things literally go pear-shaped at the Captain’s dinner, from the first hint of chaos to the absolute carnage as glamourous guests are puking after eating caviar and the ship starts getting wrecked in a massive storm before being attacked by Mediterranean pirates. All this is occurring while the cleaning staff wait patiently below deck for the dinner to be completed. The cleaning staff are headed up by chief toilet manager, Abigail played by Dolly De Leon, whose performance deserves some recognition at the 2023 Oscars for Best Supporting Actress.

As the third section of the film arrives, some of the surviving guests are stranded on a supposedly uninhabited island in the Mediterranean, whereby Abigail takes charge and soon uses the beautiful Karl for much more than just fire building. As the gender and class dynamics shift again, Abigail and Yaya go in search of what is happening on the other side of the island only to find some form of an illustrious civilization, which proves tantalizing to both.

Director Ruben Ostlund’s brilliant three part satire on the super rich is repulsively fascinating, brilliantly cast and perfectly orchestrated featuring some memorable scenes, deadpan Scandinavian film aesthetic and deserves to be seen especially the superb ending.

Triangle of Sadness gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and features more cynicism than optimism. Highly recommended viewing as it’s a beast of a film.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Director: Andy Serkis

Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Woody Harrelson, Naomie Harris, Scott Reid, Stephen Graham

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Running Time: 97 minutes

Oscar nominee Tom Hardy (The Revenant) reprises his role as struggling San Francisco journalist Eddie Brock aka Venom in the sequel to the 2018 film Venom, now called Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

Directed with a sort of Gothic efficiency by fellow actor Andy Serkis, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a fun-filled monster flick about Brock who is fighting with his dark alter ego Venom who continuously wants to eat anything in sight, while trying to maintain a semblance of a routine existence.

Venom is soon drawn into the world of insane serial killers when he is asked to interview Cletus Kassidy aka Carnage wonderfully played with a crazy attitude by Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (The People versus Larry Flynt; Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri) who is incarcerated in an insane asylum and longs to be reunited with his one true love, the equally devilish Frances Barron played by Oscar nominee Naomie Harris (Moonlight).

Soon Cletus Kassidy and Frances Barron break out of their respective institutions and are ready to infect chaos in the life of Eddie Brock including his gorgeous ex-girlfriend Anne Weying played by Oscar nominee Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn) and her new boyfriendm, the straight laced Dr Dan Lewis played by Reid Scott.

But Eddie firstly has to find Venom who escapes his body and goes on a gaudy Halloween jaunty only to discover that Brock’s body is the best place to host this symbiosis.

The four main actors made this film savagely enjoyable and director Andy Serkis fortunately did not make an overly cluttered production of this sequel and kept the running time to about 97 minutes while successfully linking Venom into the greater Sony/ Marvel Cinematic Universe as seen by the hilarious end scene in the closing credits. It’s definitely worth staying in your cinema seat for as the film ends.

Venom: Let There be Carnage does not pretend to be high-brow but it is loads of fun particularly for fans of the first film and Tom Hardy relishes in playing the role of Eddie Brock, a struggling journalist who has a hard time reconciling with his inner demon in this case the increasingly ravenous Venom.

Hardy’s body language throughout the film is amazing and so is Woody Harrelson and the final showdown in a dark Cathedral outside San Francisco is dripping with murky B-Grade Horror film references particularly the attempted marriage scene between Cletus Kassidy and Frances Barron.

Audiences should also look out for the clever animation sequence inserted in the middle of the film.

So relax and go watch Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it’s a fun-filled crazy superhero film which does not take itself or the entire caper scenario very seriously.

Efficiently directed by Andy Serkis, Venom: Let There be Carnage gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is not brilliant but a worthy sequel to the 2018 original.

Midway

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore, Luke Evans, Luke Kleintank, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Keean Johnson, Etushi Toyokawa, Tadanobu Asano, Darren Criss, Brandon Sklenar, Jake Manley

The Battle of Midway was the turning point in the fight between the Americans and the Japanese in the summer of 1942, which followed on from the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

German director Roland Emmerich who brought viewers such films as Anonymous, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day, directs Midway with explosive special effects and excellent sound editing by Peter Bawlec.

Emmerich expertly recreates a good old fashioned war film with Midway aided by a superb ensemble cast who all play real life heroes who participated and survived the epic Battle of Midway.

This cast includes Ed Skrein (Maleficent, Mistress of Evil) who plays maverick pilot Dick Best, Mandy Moore plays his outspoken wife Ann Best, Patrick Wilson as naval intelligence officer Edwin Layton, Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri) plays Chester W. Nimitz, Welsh actor Luke Evans plays Wade McClusky, Dennis Quaid plays William Halsey and Aaron Eckhart plays Jimmy Doolittle.

There are also brief appearances by musician turned actor Nick Jonas as Bruno Gaido and American Crime Story Golden Globe winner Darren Criss as Eugene Lindsay.

What screenwriter Wes Tooke does insightfully is present the battle of Midway from both the American and the Japanese perspectives showing that in every war there are always losses on both side, while highlighting the specific historical landmarks which pinpointed Japanese aggression in the Far East and the Pacific.

The bombing of Pearl Harbour dragged America into the Second World War and caused the Pacific Theatre of War to be fraught with tragedy, aggression and strategic victories on both sides until eventually the Japanese sued for peace in 1945 after the American’s decisive and devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

With spectacular visual effects, Midway is highly recommended viewing for fans of genuine historical War films which as a genre Hollywood seems to have disregarded in favour of superhero fantasy franchises.

Midway gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 is definitely worth seeing for the visual effects, the battle sequences and the portrayal of historical events during World War II which pitted two naval world powers against each other: America and the Empire of the Sun.  

Venom

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Melora Walters, Woody Harrelson

Marvel’s malevolent hero Venom comes to the big screen featuring Tom Hardy in the title role of investigative journalist Eddie Brock who unwillingly acquires the powers of a symbiote – a dark alien creature who allows him to be super-strong, constantly hungry and transform into Venom. Gangster Squad director Ruben Fleischer helms this San Francisco beast of a film.

Tom Hardy whose previous superhero work was as the villain Bane in Christopher Nolan’s electrifying The Dark Knight Rises makes the most of this anti-hero role which at times is thinly written but almost lovable as he battles the ruthless Silicon Valley tech billionaire Carlton Drake played by Riz Ahmed (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), whose alter ego is Riot – viewers can imagine the rest.

Michelle Williams plays Eddie Brock’s love interest Anne Weying and Hotel Artemis star Jenny Slate plays Dr Dora Smith who inadvertently turns against Drake after she discovers his true horrifying motivations for harbouring the symbiote.

If audiences don’t take Venom too seriously and if they are Marvel fans then Venom is an average likable superhero film featuring a wonderful performance by Hardy whose facial expressions change constantly between trustworthy and demonic. Knowing Marvel and Tom Hardy’s star power, I am sure there is a Venom sequel in development.

Venom is like the Gothic outcast of superheroes in the realm of Frankenstein, but Hardy makes his character so likeable that it’s difficult not to be on his side.

Venom gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is strictly for twisted Marvel fans who like their superheroes ugly and hungry!

Recommended viewing and personally I enjoyed Venom a lot more than I expected, mainly because of the superb casting of Oscar nominees Tom Hardy (The Revenant) and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea, My Week with Marilyn) in the main roles, whose onscreen chemistry sizzles.

Be sure to stay after the credits to catch a glimpse of Cletus Kasady….

Solo: a Star Wars Story

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Erin Kellyman, Jon Favreau, Linda Hunt

I have to confess I am a huge Star Wars fan. Ever since the first trilogy I saw when I was a kid, I have been hooked.

Well, when rumours circulated in the film trade press that there was going to be an origins story for Han Solo – it certainly piqued my curiosity. The casting was superb. The boyish charm of Alden Ehrenreich last seen in Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply is perfectly cast as the Young Han Solo, a role made famous by the Hollywood star Harrison Ford.

With steady direction by Ron Howard, Solo: A Star Wars Story is a brilliant prequel recommended especially for fans of the original trilogy, extracting elements out of The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi.

To add to the continuity, Donald Glover plays the young gambler Lando Calrissian last seen on the Bespin Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back and played back then by Billy Dee Williams. Glover is superb as the young Lando, a carefree gambler who gambles the millennium falcon in a space contest with the equally adventurous Han Solo.

Solo: A Star Wars Story also features Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson as the smuggler Tobais Beckett who teams up with Han Solo on a raid on an icy planet to steal some explosive mineral for the nefarious Dryden Vos, wonderfully played by British star Paul Bettany.

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke plays the intergalactic femme fatale Qi’ra who facilitates between Han Solo and his enemy Vos. As Beckett advises Han solo in the cutthroat world of smuggling and intergalactic piracy, trust no one.

Westworld star Thandie Newton briefly appears as Beckett’s love interest Val, a fearless fellow smuggler.

The magnificent scenes in the film belong to those between Lando and Han, which establishes a friendship based on rivalry and pure competitiveness as each recognize a rogue quality in each other. Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover are cleverly cast as these two iconic space heroes.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is an entertaining hyperspace glimpse into the origins of an infamous intergalactic Smuggler as possibly one of George Lucas’s best loved characters, the charming risk taker pilot Han Solo which both Ford and now Ehrenreich captured so perfectly onscreen.

With stunning production design and beautiful cinematography, Solo: A Star Wars Story gets a film rating of 8 out of 10.

Highly recommended viewing for fans that love Star Wars films and fondly remember the original trilogy which shaped their love for sci-fi.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Abbie Cornish, Peter Dinklage, Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes, Christopher Berry, Zeljko Ivanek, Sandy Martin, Amanda Warren

Oscar winner Frances McDormand (Fargo) gives another Oscar winning performance as the tough and angry Mildred Hayes in director Martin MCDonagh’s acerbic small town drama Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The In Bruges director paints a visceral picture of a small town populated with angry residents trapped by their own limited destinies as they battle to deal with grief, anger, death and divorce.

Featuring a phenomenally well placed cast, Three Billboards also contains stand out performances by Woody Harrelson as Chief Willoughby, Sam Rockwell as the rash and violent mama’s boy cop Dixon, who exudes pent-up aggression in his posture.

There are a host of smaller roles notably played by Peter Dinklage as James, Oscar nominee John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) as Mildred’s abusive ex-husband Charlie who has run off with a nineteen year old and Caleb Landry Jones (American Made, Get Out) as the Ebbing advertising manager Red Welby who unknowingly rents out the Billboards.

At the centre of this brittle portrayal of small town America is Frances McDormand as Mildred who is still grieving the rape and murder of her daughter Angela, a case still unsolved by the Ebbing police department.

Their bureaucratic ineptitude prompts Mildred to hire out Three Billboards which cast blame on Chief Willoughby and his team including Dixon and Desk Sergeant played Zeljko Ivanek.

Mildred’s anger and her constant profanity to the town’s population causes her relationship with her young son, Robbie, superbly played by Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) to deteriorate.

Without giving away an intricate plot, Mildred’s main battle comes up against Dixon, a tightly wound on point performance by Sam Rockwell who deservedly won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Martin McDonagh’s profane script and lively characters should have earned him an Oscar for best original screenplay but more significantly he managed to cast just the right actors in this drama which exemplify all the prejudice, bitterness and anger of being trapped in small town America which has lost touch with current socio-political trends sweeping the major cities.

Three Billboards is a powerful indictment of complacency, a brutal commentary about the violence perpetrated against women everywhere, a lot of which goes unpunished especially in provincial settings like Ebbing, Missouri which are sealed off from the nerve centres of cosmopolitan cities by their paucity and lack of economic opportunities.

It’s a relevant film about vengeance, grief and guilt, sharpened by Frances McDormand’s superb performance as Mildred Hayes who takes the law into her own hand, challenging authority and disrupting the status quo by hiring Three Billboards to show up the law enforcement as being incompetent idiots.

Three Billboards is highly recommended viewing, which will surely be discussed in years to come as a nerve-wracking examination of gender and social dynamics in localized communities.

The Oscar winning Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri gets a film rating of 9 out of 10.

The Glass Castle

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Cast: Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts, Ella Anderson, Sarah Snook, Max Greenfield, Josh Caras, Iain Armitage, Sadie Sink, Brigette Lundy-Paine

Hawaiian director Destin Daniel Cretton’s cinematic adaptation of the bestselling novel by Jeanette Walls The Glass Castle is an emotional and intricate exploration of a dysfunctional family’s unconventional upbringing.

The Glass Castle stars Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (The People vs Larry Flynt, The Messenger) as the patriarch Rex Walls and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (21 Grams, The Impossible) as his wife Rose Mary. Oscar winner Brie Larson (Room) stars as the grownup second daughter Jeanette who would eventually turn from gossip columnist writer to bestselling author of the novel from which the story is based.

Ella Anderson plays the younger version of Jeannette who has to deal with her poverty-stricken parents as they grow up in the backwater of West Virginia, often living in abandoned buildings and scrounging for food money.

At the film’s outset it is clear that Jeannette has a special bond with her heavy drinking, big dreaming and often delusional father Rex who keeps promising her and her siblings (two sisters and a brother) that he is going to build the family a glass castle from which they can glimpse the stars through.

As the narrative shifts between New York in 1989 and her poverty stricken upbringing in rural West Virginia, The Glass Castle intelligently explores the concepts of sustainable living, of living off the grid and repudiating the city driven Capitalist work ethic which defines contemporary America.

The mother Rose Mary is too busy painting to watch her children, never mind feed them while the father Rex is too busy drinking to actually get a proper a job to support his family. Woody Harrelson gives one of the best performances of his screen career as Rex Walls as he manipulates and misguides the family into believing that he has the capacity to actually take care of them.

Eventually the young Jeannette says to her siblings that they have to make their own plans to save up money and leave West Virginia for more lucrative work opportunities in New York.

Fast forward to 1989, where the older Jeannette, beautifully played with nuance and comprehensive emotional intelligence by Brie Larson who as a successful journalist on the verge of marrying her straitlaced accountant fiancée David played by Max Greenfield (The Big Short) suddenly has to contend with her parents squatting on the Lower East Side in an abandoned building.

Josh Caras, Brigette Lundy-Paine and Sarah Snook (The Dressmaker, Steve Jobs) play the other siblings Brian, Maureen and Lori.

The best scenes in The Glass Castle are between Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson and while the film is an emotional joyride, it does not give the parents any social accountability for the way they brought up their children through neglect and apparent starvation.

The Glass Castle is a fascinating exploration of familial responsibility or lack thereof and the emotional effects that irresponsible parents decision making can have on their unsuspecting children.

The drama gets a film rating of 8 out 10.

The highly underrated Woody Harrelson should received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as Rex Walls in the upcoming 2018 Academy Awards.

The Glass Castle is recommended viewing for those that enjoy a tense, sometimes difficult family drama where the children are told to pick stars while they are starving on earth.

War for the Planet of the Apes

Director: Matt Reeves

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell, Judy Greer, Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller, Max Lloyd-Jones

Original score composer Michael Giacchino won an Oscar for Best Original Score for the animated film Up in 2010. Giacchino has also composed film music for Ratatouille, Inside Out and Jurassic World among many others. His most recent musical composition is for the Matt Reeves directed War for the Planet of the Apes in which he surely deserves another Oscar nomination.

In this case, brilliant music makes the film. War for the Planet of the Apes on a technical level is a superb film with superior production design by James Chinlund while the sound editing is perfect especially noticeable in the film’s final battle sequence which by all counts is absolutely remarkable.

As a story of survival of one species over another and an allegorical tale about the horrors of colonialism, War for the Planet of the Apes, with an engaging screenplay by Mark Bomback, is a fascinating film examining ethnographically man’s relationship with animals within the context of climate change or scientific experimentation.

At the centre of the narrative about a vicious conflict between men and apes is a towering performance by Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (No Country for Old Men, The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Messenger) as The Colonel In which he draws direct inspiration from Marlon Brando’s performance of Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s ground breaking Apocalypse Now.

Andy Serkis in motion capture technology plays Caesar an ape desperately trying to save his clan from being eliminated by the merciless attack of The Colonel’s army.

In a fascinating plot twist, the apes discover a mute young girl, played by Amiah Miller who galvanizes their support to fight on and also provides empathy for a conflict which is far more complex than it appears, brought on by a simian virus which has attacked Earth.

In the final chapter of the Apes Trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes is technically brilliant, engaging and utterly watchable and director Matt Reeves has proved his worth in a film which is as good as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, which also provided the final chapter in a compact trilogy.

Toby Kebbell (Warcraft, Prince of Persia) appears briefly as Koba and Steve Zahn (Dallas Buyers Club) appears as Bad Ape all done in superb motion capture technology but what really elevates War for the Planet of the Apes was the excellent musical score provided by Michael Giacchino for which he should be recognized at the 2018 Oscars.

War for the Planet of the Apes gets a film rating of 8.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended for audiences that enjoyed the first two chapters of the Apes films. Technically this film is extraordinary.

Now You See Me 2

Director: Jon M. Chu

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

Following the success of the 2013 magical film Now You See Me, there was definitely a call to make a sequel and reunite the illusive four horsemen.

In the sequel, Now You See Me 2, G. I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon M. Chu misses the mark in providing a magical follow up to the original film, despite reuniting the same cast including Jesse Eisenberg as Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney who also has a rather irritating identical twin brother in this film, Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes and Dave Franco as Jack Wilder.

New to the cast is master illusionist Lula played by Lizzy Caplan famous from the raunchy Masters of Sex TV series and the superfluous Daniel Radcliffe as a reclusive tech billionaire Walter Mabry who recruits the magicians to steal back a ubiquitous yet highly guarded computer chip which can hack into anything at an international exchange in the glamorous resort casinos of Macau.

As the action moves swiftly from New York to Macau and then onto London, the magical tricks and digital illusions even involving numerous card tricks in which the microchip seemingly passes from one horseman to another, Now You See Me 2 appears to be lacking in the essential element of revelation. Something the first film did so brilliantly. For as the optical illusions, card tricks and magic increases, there is less time to provide valuable explanations to the bewildered if slightly amused audience.

Veteran actors Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman reprise their roles as Arthur Tressler and Thaddeus Bradley respectively whose unholy alliance leads the Four Horseman to play the ultimate trick on the chief villain, a poorly played part by Daniel Radcliffe, who unfortunately appeared to be out of place in this sequel. Perhaps Radcliffe should stick to stronger script material with meatier roles in mind like he did in Victor Frankenstein and Kill Your Darlings.

Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight, Foxcatcher) is plausibly believable as the elusive FBI agent Rhodes despite occasionally giving the impression that he should not have signed on for this sequel. Harrelson is in top form playing twins and the only sparks are provided by Eisenberg and Caplan who seem to be the most energetic and enthusiastic magicians.

Whilst Now You See Me 2 falls short of being as brilliant as the first film, it certainly is a fun film to watch even if the plot is slightly convoluted especially in between the globetrotting disappearing acts that the main actors seem to do quite effortlessly. Now You See Me 2 is an enjoyable film, but nothing as magical or dazzling as the original. Lets hope the third film in this magical trilogy is more impressive.