I saw this movie without even being sure that I had seen the last one, but certain that I had heard Dan Harmon freak out about how the previous sequel had been named by cowards (as Friend put it before rudely canceling because it was his 40th birthday and he was deathly ill).
Nothing about this movie is going to be a joyful experience for you in any way. It purports to be a movie about magic but almost entirely the magic is done through CGI instead of practical effects. Like, the film thinks it’s The Prestige, but it tracks like the magical equivalent of an a capella movie for singing nerds with gems like Magic is About Science or Magic is About The Guy Behind the Curtain or Magic is About Misdirection, but it lacks any real form of misdirection. The whole movie reads like it’s going to have a Soderbergh twist right at the end that will blow your mind and inspire a bunch of obnoxious “WTF Happened at the End of NYSM:NYD???” articles, which is why after 2+ hours, I sat in my chair for full minutes after the credits rolled waiting for the twist to occur, the thing that they were setting up that would require me to assemble my wits and retread through a slight of hand with the plot, but none came. For a movie that purports to be about prestidigitation and legerdemain, it’s weirdly straight and earnest.
Speaking of straight: this movie is unreflectively white and hetero, like the entirety of the film is about a bunch of white people dodging literal bullets while the PoC are slowly snuffed out. When it’s not about how every woman has to get together with her man, it’s making strangely specific and artificial observations about the differences between Millennials and Zill’–ennials. The phrase “Magic is so 2015” never gets said but the sentiment gets repeated three or four times in the first hour, as characters reprise their roles as young magicians as they begin pushing 40 and beyond, which makes Woody Harrelson, the affable crank from the last movie (who partnered with Jesse in the bad zombie movie fully 16 years ago and then again for sequel designed specifically to ruin a weekend I had with my Brother and Sister six years ago) seem positively ancient and weirdly mute on generational observations from Gen X. But that might have more to do with the fact that his magical “talent” is what appears to be non consensual hypnosis or fist-fighting?
So, aside from being a movie about practical magic that makes magic seem like it’s real but kind of ratchet through cheap-looking CGI and a script that gets weirdly mired in how worn and hackey the concept of a magic-heist is, here we find ourselves. Watching Jesse Eisenberg try to reprise his role as a young smart alec makes me hate him so much for not having the self-awareness to decline a role that no longer suits him. Rosamund Pike’s South African Diamond Mine Heir thing is a little on the nose for contemporary villains and though she plays every scene like she’s six steps ahead of her enemy, she’s always four steps behind, which is especially confusing toward the end of the movie, when you’re expecting another shoe to drop and she ends up just being a Dalek in White Woman’s Clothes. There’s a scene in which the Gang (8 is waaayyyyyyy too big an ensemble–everyone is given equal lines in every interaction and it kind of dissipates the plot into a series of shallow character-driven observations that derail everything) compete to one up each other on a magic trick and it’s so cringe you’re going to want to end your life about thirty percent of the way through before you realize you’re not even close to its resolution.
Just to give you a sense of how absolutely messed up this movie is: there’s a new character whose entire personality is based on his impressions he gives in both the CINEMATIC TRAILER for this movie and also the opening scene, but after that scene he NEVER DOES ANOTHER IMPRESSION. Gen Z-specific knowledge cited is “escape rooms” and… that is it, actually. Reading, maybe? Maybe, reading? There’s actually one cool fight in the police station with Ariana Greenblatt (65) and whatever thought process led the writers to come up with the line “fuck magic” in the final scene is actually quite fun, but that scene mostly is kind of silly and low stakes.
Cannot imagine a more excruciating way for you to make your time disappear this weekend.
