ushwick, New York finds the Four Horsemen group of celebrity magicians appearing for the first time in a decade – and reunited, no less. J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and his squad, including Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), put on a secret performance in a warehouse, though it’s still somehow attended by a group of hecklers who mock and ridicule the show, poking fun at its appeal for 12-year-olds only. Never mind that they play a larger part in the eventual revelations; there’s simply no sensible reason for them to be there.

And that’s just the first of many problems for the believability of this second sequel in the series (which should have been called “Now You Three Me”; if the Fast & Furious franchise can embrace naming absurdities, why can’t this one?). Lending to the film’s greatest downfall all throughout is a collection of tricks that aren’t really feasible tricks; they’re nonsensical CG-infused perplexities of the visually silly kind, boasting not crafty, brainy concepts but betraying viewers with outrageous feats that could only be pulled off with complicity by the marks. Once again, this is the kind of magic that isn’t magic at all – it’s pure fantasy.

The old guard is now joined by young admirers, not unlike in “The Expendables 3,” with Bosco (Dominic Sessa), Charlie (Justice Smith), and June (Ariana Greenblatt) doing their best to copy their heroes in a new, younger gang, though their gimmicks are just as mired in disbelief – especially when it comes to physical stunts that are clearly enhanced with animated graphics. It hardly matters, however, as this series long ago abandoned mere stage sorcery; they’re Robin Hood-like bandits, selflessly stealing from the rich to give to the poor, while also working for a top-secret superspy agency called “The Eye,” as they globe-trot from Limpopo to Antwerp to France to the UAE, infiltrating high-class presentations that apparently never bother to hire security. Of course, the populous police forces in all of these territories are comparably impotent to intercede, since – obviously – all of these magicians are masters in martial arts combat. It’s not a stretch to say that, just as when auto mechanics became saviors of the world in the Fast & Furious movies, the magicians here have fully transformed into larger-than-life action heroes. “He’s a frickin’ legend!”

To solidify the comparisons to a James Bond adventure, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” features a James Bond villainess – in the form of evil diamond-mining magnate Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike, with a South African accent that is consistently distracting), who abuses her subordinates in a flashy demonstration of power over them, while flaunting her wickedness with booby-trapped palaces and ballrooms full of arms dealers and drug runners. If she’s nothing but comically objectionable, it’s fitting that her opponents are perpetually flippant and insincere, cracking jokes and shrugging off incidents with firearms pointed at them (people with guns here are always disarmed effortlessly). The extreme lack of seriousness during every misadventure means that when life-or-death scenarios arise, it’s difficult not to simply dismiss them the way that the leads do in every other scene. “This can’t be happening!”

An activism angle crops up to create moderate relevancy (nearly ten years after the previous entry), while sleight-of-hand tricks remain the most amusing of the many terribly fake illusions on display, and brief impersonations could be impressive if it wasn’t ambiguous as to whether or not the stars are actually performing them (movie magic makes it likely that they did not). But despite the charm of getting the entire band back together for quirky shenanigans, there isn’t really a new story to tell. The target has changed, but the performers are the same, and the unconvincing magic tricks are just as poorly executed. Plus, they’re regularly explained via flashbacks, which are the easy way out of staging something that is supposed to be smart, but can’t be bothered with actual intelligent designs (at several points, characters believe they’re in locations that they’re not, yet audiences are only shown the perspective from that misguided persona, robbing them of any shot at figuring out the ruses before they’re revealed in lengthy flashbacks). The continual game of chummy oneupmanship ensues, too, as disappearing acts, seemingly facile stunts, and irritating cockiness take the place of grounded interactions.

“Magicians are entertainers … not superheroes!” That’s a particularly bad line of dialogue to be used in a film that does the exact opposite, having the prestidigitators eternally conduct over-the-top exploits, befitting only of entities with superpowers. Nevertheless, if there are fans of this series – which there probably shouldn’t be – this latest chapter contains all the ingredients they could hope for. But it’s still all colossally stupid stuff.

– Mike Massie