Tag: Lizzy Caplan

Review: Now You See Me 2

This sequel that pulls a hat out of a rabbit, and feels pretty good about doing it.

Despite missing out on a golden opportunity to call the film “Now You Don’t,” the Horsemen return from their exile only to be thrown straight into a new box of cards. After eluding the FBI for several years and framing Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) for their crimes, thanks largely to “Fifth Horseman” Dylan Rhodes’ (Mark Ruffalo) misdirection from inside the bureau, the team is itching to get back onto the stage. They get the chance when Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and newcomer Lula (Lizzy Caplan) are lured to perform a public takedown of a tech magnate. However, their flamboyant act is a trap, as Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe) uses their outing to blackmail them into performing a seemingly impossible heist.

Which is where NOW YOU SEE ME 2 significantly differs from its predecessor. While there were heist elements to the first film, there was also a mystery around the Four Horseman and half the fun was in finding out how they were getting away with their “magic.” Here we are following the group as underdog heroes, rather than dubious anti-heroes, and the primary focus of the sequel is a caper in the vein of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise. Now having to follow these characters more closely, but keep their final reveal until the bitter end, scribe Ed Solomon (co-writer of the original) occasionally baffles with nonsensical occurrences and MacGuffins. Take for example the twin brother of McKinney, which gives Harrelson a chance to play two characters, both of whom are hams. With Ruffalo’s Dylan now on the side of the Horseman, we also miss an antagonist that we secretly want to see win.

Make no mistake: NOW YOU SEE ME 2 is an incredibly silly film, but while it isn’t always self-aware of this fact, it’s nevertheless endearing because of its devotion to that special brand of self-satisfying denouement. While the greatest trick this sequel pulls is making the memorable Isla Fisher disappear completely, and sliding Lizzy Caplan into place without too much fuss, there is also something uniquely charming about the series of final reveals and wrap-ups, each of which will make you smile despite the fact that they don’t actually make any sense upon closer inspection. Like a magic trick, you’ll believe that the curtain has been pulled back and some clever comforting truth has been revealed, even though you know at your core it’s all smoke and mirrors.

NOW YOU SEE ME 2 releases in Australia on 2 June 2016 from eOne Films. It releases in the US on 10 June from Summit Entertainment.

2015 | US | DIR: John M. Chu | WRITERS: Ed Solomon | CAST: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Helder Rei, Jay Chou, Sanaa Lathan, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman | DISTRIBUTOR: eOne Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RATING:★★★ (6/10)

June 2, 2016
Review: Marvel One-Shot – Item 47

Marvel Studio’s latest one-shot is the most ambitious to date, adding a whole lot of new ingredients to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But is it missing the most important one?

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Item 47 (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Louis D’Esposito

Writer: Eric Pearson

Runtime: 12 minutes

Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Bradford, Maximiliano Hernández, Titus Welliver

Distributor: Disney

Country: US

More info

[/stextbox]

We were privileged to be invited to a special advanced screening of Marvel’s latest One-Shot by Disney at the Heroes and Villains exhibition in Sydney. The following review, provided by contributor Sean Riley, contains some spoilers. Read on at your own peril!

Item 47 sees Benny (Jesse Bradford) and Claire (Lizzy Caplan), a pair of hapless lovers and criminals (with more than a hint of Pulp Fiction’s Honey-Bunny and Pumpkin to them) manage to lay their hands on a piece of Chitauri weaponry lost in the climactic battle of The Avengers. Faced with a handheld howitzer in the general populace, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Agent Sitwell is dispatched to recover the gun and ‘neutralise’ Benny and Claire. Will Benny and Claire get away from their pursuer? Will Sitwell have the cold blooded ruthlessness to carry out his orders? Will Nick Fury personally review whatever policy sends out a single agent to stop two people with high powered weaponry?

I’ve been a great fan of the “One-Shots” series of short films; I loved the way that The Consultant acted as some spackle for the inevitable cracks that emerged in something as big and heavy as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the surprisingly charming and interestingly shot A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer. But Item 47 has a surprising amount of pressure on it, being both the first film of “Phase Two” of the mega-franchise, and the first One-Shot not to star fan-favourite Agent Coulson. It’s also the most technically demanding one-shot so far, without question. The short features a lot of flashy CGI, and multiple sets! (Believe it or not, that’s a first for the series!)

Sadly, it also doesn’t really pull together into anything much memorable. While we can’t really know how much set-up it’s doing for the future films, it notably fails to excite any sense of fannish speculation; although it’s a decent bet that one of smitten sackers might make a return appearance. (I was convinced for a brief second that the short was setting up an alien angle on the rumored Extremis inspired plotline for Iron Man 3.) As a novice of the comics, I might well be missing a tie-in to a key part of the comics universe, but short of that, it seems a very modest tale with little of major import to the wider setting.

And as Marvel’s first attempt to show what S.H.I.E.L.D. will look like post-Coulson, it does little other than emphasise just how good Clark Gregg was in the role. I liked Titus Welliver’s grouchy paper-pusher Agent Blake fine. Being more or less the lead, Maximiliano Hernández has considerably warmed into the role of Agent Sitwell since The Consultant, and as an actor he comes across as much more confident and assured, but it feels like he’s doing a Coulson impersonation instead of developing his character into its own thing. Hernández has a certain wonderful dorky humanity to his screen presence (he gets a lovely little moment upon receiving his orders; not a word, but a clear flicker across his face making his fear and distaste at them palpable) and I’d like to see him go more in that route. The panicky, oh-shit-making-it-all-up-as-I-go action hero has a grand history, and Hernández could kill in that mode.

But as a new Coulson? Well, he just can’t deadpan a line the way Gregg could. The script doesn’t help; there’s no wonderful discussion about Sitwell’s admirable qualities as a patsy here, or any lines as good as “Excuse me? I also have this gun.” Sure, Gregg turned even so-so lines into gold, but he also had more to work with than Item 47 gives. The line that most sticks in my head is one given to Sitwell, speaking of Agent Coulson: “We all miss him.” Yes we do.

Item 47 is released on The Avengers Blu-ray on 29 August 2012 in Australia, and 26 September 2012 in the US from Disney.

August 25, 2012
Details on Marvel’s Item 47 One Shot Revealed

Set to appear on The Avengers Blu-ray and DVD, out August 29 in Australia and September 25 in the US, EW has revealed details on Marvel’s latest One-Shot short film, a series of shorts that have appeared on the home releases and expanded the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Previous shorts have included The Consultant and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer. This latest chapter is said to be the longest and most ambitious, with a full description over at EW. They’ve also revealed the first image from the short:

Lizzy Caplan (Party Down, pictured) and Jesse Bradford (Flags of Our Fathers) star as a down-on-their-luck couple who find one of the discarded alien guns from the finale to The Avengers — and proceed to make some incredibly bad decisions.

This is the longest, most elaborate of the Marvel shorts so far, and could be a first step toward using short-subject films to dive deeper into the Marvel universe and introduce beloved but less-familiar superheroes to the mainstream.

Item 47 refers to the gun itself, which S.H.I.E.L.D. would like very much to retrieve from the hapless young troublemakers. “The world is topsy-turvy now. There’s been an alien invasion, and things are crazy,” explains Marvel Studios co-president Louis D’Esposito, who directed the film himself. “So when this gun literally fell into their lap, this is a sign: We’re going to rob a few banks, we’re going to buy a boat, we’re going to the Caribbean, and all our problems will be solved.”

Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (Maximiliano Hernández, returning from Thor and The Avengers, and Lost’s Man in Black Titus Welliver, making his Marvel debut) are given the job of cleaning up the mess and stopping this modern Bonnie and Clyde (not coincidentally named Benny and Claire).

July 4, 2012