Louis Leterrier

In the previous film, there was a clear increase in the intensity of ridiculousness as the movie jumped, sprinted and punched its way to a amazingly silly finale that shun what little sense of reality its first half had established. The returning trio of director Louis Leterrier and screenwriting duo Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (Corey Yuen is missing in action for this round) take the devil may care attitude of the original film’s second half and apply it right from the get go in Transporter 2.

It is somewhat amazing to think that in 2015, a fourth Transporter film (The Transporter Refueled) was released in theatres. Whether that is a testament to the franchise’s longevity or the studios desperation that make whatever money they can out of a series of films that admittedly has its fanbase but is mostly just a drop in the ocean compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universes and James Bonds of the movie world is another debate altogether.

“Some things are better left unexplained,” a character intones at one point in Now You See Me, a wise lesson that the film’s trio of screenwriters should’ve taken to heart. This heist film, in which a quartet of magicians are highly intelligent thieves (or are they?), becomes more nonsensical and inexplicable the more we learn about how these tricksters have robbed banks (or have they?) and sent federal agents on various wild-goose chases (or were…well, you get the idea).

The term ‘movie magic’ has, alas, lost much of its once proud luster. Film savvy folks can now read in-depth articles, watch online interviews with filmmakers and dive into the ogles of behind-the-scenes content available on home media formats that reveal the tricks of the trade in impressive detail.