The more outrageous the illusion being orchestrated, the more relish Now You See Me 2 demonstrates, excited to show us just how it happened. To be sure, Now You See Me 2 requires an almost musical-like choreography, considering that the action set pieces often revolve around deception and verbal trickery, and Chu invests the proceedings with a film-ish artificiality that enjoys its own absurdity. Chu brings some of the high-energy irreverence that distinguished his work on Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D. Replacing Louis Leterrier, who directed the first instalment, Jon M. With Isla Fisher’s Henley no longer part of the team, they are joined by Lula (Caplan), who alongside the Horsemen’s secret FBI liaison Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) must work together to retrieve a powerful computer chip stolen from a wealthy, eccentric inventor (Radcliffe) that can access any laptop or mainframe on the planet. Taking place about a year after the first film, Now You See Me 2 reunites Atlas (Eisenberg), McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and Wilder (Dave Franco), a group of world-famous magicians known as the Horsemen who stage high-profile illusions to expose corrupt magnates and millionaires. The franchise’s Ocean’s Eleven-with-magicians premise remains potent, and the rising commercial visibility of co-stars Jesse Eisenberg and Mark Ruffalo will no doubt help, the cast boosted this time around by the likes of Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Radcliffe. Opening in several territories by June 10, it will hope to duplicate the surprise success of the 2013 original, which grossed $352 million worldwide. In limited doses, the slick, self-satisfied preposterousness of Now You See Me 2 can be fun, but eventually the trick becomes stale. More often than not, Now You See Me 2 devolves into mildly wry quips and vaguely self-aware jabs at its own clichés.

Once again chronicling the exploits of a team of smartass illusionists, this sequel is obsessed with deceiving viewers into believing one reality and then pulling the rabbit out of the hat to delight and startle us, always at the ready to explain how it achieved the feat.

A good magician never reveals his secrets, but what about a shameless one? Doubling down on the giddily ridiculous tone of its predecessor, Now You See Me 2 is diverting, but the film’s rampant, cheeky cleverness - its ‘can you guess what’s going on?” coyness - ultimately proves tiresome.

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