Just Say ‘No’ to Number 3

Watching Jon Chu’s “Now You See Me 2,” and wondering if it was ever going to end, it occurred to me that one thing successful magicians know about is timing.

If the audience is getting antsy, the illusion isn’t going to work.

And this audience was definitely restless.

Two women sitting in front of me said they had seen the original 2013 film and were looking forward to the sequel.(They didn’t say this to me, but I overheard them. I am, after all, a trained observer.)

These women left. I think they were saying, “Pshaw.”

When the film took yet another ridiculous turn, a man across the aisle emitted an audible sigh.

Let’s see if we can recapture the tedium. The Horsemen are magicians or illusionists. They take on International Corporate Bad Guys™  (ICBG) who are trying to invade our electronic privacy. For profits. 

Oooh.

Their leader, Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is also an FBI agent. 

Aaah.

Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are part of the team, along with Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson, adorned with a series of unfortunate stingy-brim fedoras).

Got it.

They have a hot babe who just joined — Lula May (Lizzy Caplan).

Hubba-hubba.

And Michael Caine, who never turns down a part, and Morgan Freeman, who wants to be Michael Caine, lurk in the wings.

As does Daniel Radcliffe, as criminal genius Walter Mabry.

Uh-huh.

The action starts in New York, I think. But then the plan to expose the first ICBG goes kablooey, and the gang jumps in a tube and winds up in Macao.

They have to get something they call “the stick,” otherwise Daniel Radcliffe will exile them to an island where all anyone does is play Quidditch.

Just to mess with the audience, the stick doesn’t look like a stick. It looks like a sort of comb, with technology.

The ICBGs have Merritt’s evil twin, Chase, on their team. In a brilliant twist, Chase is also played by Woody Harrelson, and instead of hipster hats has hair and lots of suspiciously white teeth.

Meanwhile they all get kidnapped and escape; shoved into safes and dropped in rivers; thrown out of airplanes; beaten up in casinos and bird-dogged by the FBI.

All of this is for no apparent reason.

We’re talking bad skinny suits, especially on Freeman. Harrelson looks like Freddy Krueger, except when he looks like Greg Brady.

FBI vans operating in plain sight in London. Federal prison cells that feature computers, easy chairs and coffee makers. Matching bow tie and pocket square. Mark Ruffalo needing a shave. Gratuitous rap music. Adoring crowds. 

Again, it’s about timing. Nobody would notice Harrelson’s trademark grimace or Ruffalo’s hairy phizz if the flick kept moving.

But it doesn’t.

And by the time we get to the grand finale, old ladies have walked out, a guy is on the phone asking his wife what’s for dinner and a general sense of resignation, leavened with despair, prevails.

This is one tedious movie. 

“Now You See Me,” eh? I can tell you where you’re not going to see me — in the audience for “Now You See Me 3.”