REVIEW: MOVIE BLAST: Now You See Me & Now You See Me 2

Now You See Me

Louis Leterrier’s 2013 movie Now You See Me is part bank heist movie, half thriller.  Four struggling magicians (each with a unique talent) are recruited by mysterious business man, Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) to become the greatest magical quartet of all time. Also starring Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman and Jesse Eisenberg, this movie certainly has star power.

The magicians become The Four Horsemen and become famous after a massive show becomes wold renowned after a spectacular bank heist – and the proceedings go back to the audience in true Robin Hood style (i.e. rob from the rich, give to the poor). After they turncoat on their benefactor at the second act and steal his money to give to the audience (themselves victims of their benefactors company), the FBI are on the case. Mark Ruffalo plays an FBI detective who joins forces with Interpol’s French female officer, Alma Drey (Melanie Laurent). Always one step ahead, The Four Horsemen are planning their biggest show yet. Meanwhile, their antics attract the attention of Morgan Freeman, who is hot on their tails too – to create a multi-faceted storyline and a surprising conclusion.

Full of funky magic tricks, action and excitement, NYSM is a great watch and has a good twist at the end. The cast is fantastic and kept me watching ‘til the credits roll – but stay because there’s another bit in the middle. My only concern is that they did not spend very much time on the Four Horsemen themselves, and this would be nicer as they seemed to have a good comraderie and I think it would have been interesting to see more about them. A great movie.

POPSCORE: 8/10

Now You See Me 2

Now You See Me 2 is once again more of the same from (just about) the same cast as the first one, with the replacement of Isla Fisher with Lizzy Caplan as the sassy Lula, the newest member of the Horsemen. They talk away Fisher’s absence assigning the reason to a falling out with Jesse Eisenberg’s character Atlas – and introduce Caplan’s character as a fan of the Horsemen who wants to be part of the gang with her unique magic tricks too. However, I don't know about you, but surely they missed a trick - this film should have been called Now You Don't.

It’s more of the same story too, set around 18 months after the events of the last movie.  The Horsemen are brought out of hiding to perform a show to bring down a tech magnate and it gets all very Mission: Impossible meets Ocean’s Eleven (or Ocean’s Four or Five in this instance) and leads the viewer on a path through some mind-blowing magical tricks with some action and adventure thrown in the mix.  However, the magical tricks the team use are verging on them actually having superpowers and are a little less believable than the previous film, but it’s still fun none the less.

Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, also appears in this movie and, although he is sporting an impressive beard, he still seems very Harry Potterish. This is even to the extent that Woody Harrelson describes him as some sort of man-boy in one scene. Speaking of Woody Harrelson – his performance in this movie is fantastic and makes an already great movie even better – especially when we are introduced to his twin brother Chase (who is also played by Woody Harrelson… with hair!).

So yes, I really liked this movie and I would love them to make another sequel – it could be a franchise as I think there’s plenty more to go from here. Ruffalo, Caine and Freeman return with their characters too and, although the ending is nowhere near as twisty as the first movie, it leaves it open for another part to come. There’s only a few niggly bits with this movie – including unforgiveable continuity errors, but watching it for what it is – a bit of fun and excitement with a bit of ooh-ing and ahh-ing thrown in – makes this a magical show worth a watch.

POPSCORE: 8/10

REVIEW: SPECTRE (12A)

It's been nearly 10 years that we have seen Mr Daniel Craig slip into the white tuxedo of cool and brining back the next iteration of Bond to a contemporary audience. In Casino Royale nearly 10 years ago in 2006, Daniel Craig was rough, gritty and a man's man. The women loved him for his ... well probably for the blue Speedo's which he managed to rock very well apparently. Seriously though, in a world getting sick of the camp and the pie in the sky gadgets, it brought James Bond to the modern times. Die Another Day was so out there it practically signalled the end of Bond altogether and the ageing Pierce Brosnan (who had held the franchise quite well up unitl then) was becoming a parody of himself.

Craig, in my eyes at the time, wasn't a suitable James Bond. However, after seeing his performance in Casino Royale my mind was changed. I ate my hat, swallowed my words, what ever you want to say. This version of James Bond was realistic, gritty, painful and witty and had the charisma of his previous incarnations but has a silent deadliness in his dealings with others. When, at the beginning of Casino Royale, he is asked about his first kill his quarry responds with, "the second one is much..." and off goes the gun and Bond replies coolly, "yes, considerably."

...that was one of my favourite lines of the first movie, and he does have some cool retorts, especially in the torture scene of Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace followed which took place straight after this movie and felt like the extended, straight to DVD sequel movie that was more of an extension to Casino Royale rather than a movie itself. Still it wasn't bad, but it didn't drop much hope for the one after that. But things did change.

Skyfall pretty much decimated the box office and, to me, it only felt like five minutes ago that that movie was at the cinema and Adele's track, Skyfall, was doing the rounds and doing it's own record breaking as it was. Skyfall was a conscious move by the makers to bring Bond back to what we know and there were a lot of changes made to set up Spectre, Daniel Craig's fourth outing as our favourite spy.

Spectre then, is probably the Bond movie that is starting to get back to the Bond that our parents grew up with. Still maintaining the Bond we know from the Craig era and using ideas from the others, this is both a moving forward movie with the story but also an homage to the old ones. Some parts are blatant visual cues or references to the old movies, and some reference the more recent ones.

Spectre feels like it is a movie that has a story to tell and is on for quite a long run time, so you have to strap in for the ride. The action is judiciously spaced with character and plot developments and sometimes the talking and walking is on for a bit too long before anything exciting happens. For those who have seen all the other Craig era movies, then there is plenty to get your teeth into as it answers some questions, raises some others and has some nice references so you feel you are moving along with the character as they develop (i.e. there's a rather fetching porcelain bulldog on Bond's table near the beginning of the movie).

Director Sam Mendes and, of course, Daniel Craig return for the next instalment of the James Bond franchise. Most of the characters return from the previous movie - Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) from Skyfall comes into his own in this one, which is good because he came across as a bit of nasty piece of work in Skyfall. That role now is filled by 'C' or Max Denbigh who is wanting to disband the 00 initiative and have something more modern and new in it's place (involving drones and computer surveillance). I can't help but feel he would love to hang out with Silva from Skyfall with all of his computers. But 'C' is the least of our worries as Bond discovers the mysterious organisation SPECTRE led by the mysterious Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) who has been "the architect" of Bond's misery since Casino Royale. Or, at least, so he says.

Backing up Bond once again is new pals Moneypenny and Q (Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw respectively). I had my concerns about them changing Moneypenny too - but Naomie Harris does such a fantastic job that I was glad to hear that the makers of Bond want to keep the aforementioned characters (and their actors) for a few movies more.

Spectre starts at the Day of the Dead festival as Bond is following a lead to try and uncover the truth about recent events (i.e. what happened in Skyfall). As MI6 is undergoing changes in the office, Bond is told that, after causing some chaos, he is destined for some time off. As he leaves the office he enlists the help on Moneypenny and Q to continue his off-the-record investigation of this mysterious syndicate. Along the way he meets some rather attractive ladies in the form of Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux who provide the exotic Bond girl love interest. Bellucci claims the record of oldest Bond girl (though she isn't in it very long) and Seydoux's Madeleine Swann, though sexy, gives Bond a run for his money every now and then.

Heavy on exposition, story and character development, Spectre takes Bond into its next chapter. There is a lot going on here and it's great. The action sequences come when they are ready and when they do they are worth waiting for. There's some surprises, nods to the other movies and feels like a follow on though this could stand in it's own right. This is a great movie and is up there with the best, but in my opinion its not quite as good as Skyfall or Casino Royale.   

SPECTRE is out now at all good cinemas.

POPSCORE: 8.5/10

What am I talking about? SPECTRE, the latest James Bond movie

Where can I find out more? http://www.007.com
If you liked this try: The James Bond movies Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace - basically the Daniel Craig era Bond, any of the Bourne series, Taken, Mission: Impossible series of movies 

Anything else?

The theme tune for this one is called The Writing's On The Wall and is performed by current pop star Sam Smith.  

SPECTRE is an acronym standing for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. It is a fictional global terrorist organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming and prominent in the 1960s James Bond films.