Yesterday Lainey wrote about Jesse Eisenberg’s, um, satirical take on film critics in The New Yorker. I recognize the type of critic he’s lampooning, so I find it halfway funny, but I also think this is how he sees all film critics, not just that particular type, and it’s a pretty dumb and immature view on a large aspect of his job. Actors don’t have to be friends with critics, but you don’t create in a vacuum, either. You create something, and for better or worse, people react to it. Though I’m sure that’s just me being a jealous failure. This is the real problem with his New Yorker piece: He’s made it so you can’t criticize him without it becoming about his dumb satire.
Which means we’re probably in for a rough go next year when Now You See Me 2 comes out. The first trailer for the sequel to the movie no one but Lainey admits to watching was released yesterday, and it does not look wonderful. My main issue with Now You See Me is that the magic in the movie is aided by—and at times only possible because of—CGI. That just takes the interest out of it. If all the magic tricks were done practically in-camera, that could be really cool, but goosing them along with CGI is kind of cheating. It makes them less ILLUSIONS and more like lies. This movie is made of lies.
But Lizzy Caplan is so hard to resist. So is Mark Ruffalo. And Daniel Radcliffe is in this one, apparently playing a bad magician. I like that! The best part of this trailer is the DanRad bit at the end. It’s a pretty great ensemble, though we have no idea what’s they’re doing. There’s no plot in this trailer, except that there will be running and fake CGI magic, and DanRad is bad at card tricks. Is that enough to get you into the theater? And more importantly—is it enough to get you to admit to watching Now You See Me 2? Is this another one everyone will see on a plane?
