Film / Now You See Me 2

"This is simply my move. Next one is yours."

"Are you listening, Horsemen? When you emerge, and you will, I will be there waiting. Because mark my words, you will get what's coming to you. In ways you can't expect. But very much deserve. Because one thing I believe in is an eye for an eye."

— Thaddeus Bradley

Now You See Me 2 is a 2016 thriller-caper film and sequel to Now You See Me directed by Jon M. Chu, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Lizzy Caplan, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Morgan Freeman, Jay Chou and Michael Caine.

One year after the events of the first film, the Horsemen are starting to get antsy – they haven’t had a public performance since then, and there’s some dissention in the ranks – Henley has already left the Horsemen, and the others are waiting for new orders from The Eye. However, the Horsemen and their leader from the first film soon get a job to ruin the launch of a smartphone that could ruin the privacy of everyone in the world. Except that this job was a setup, and the privacy most ruined is the Horsemen’s own. Desperate, the team tries to pull off one last caper.

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Now You See Me 2 provides examples of:

• Actually, That's My Assistant: A second-hand variant. The plan for stealing the chip calls for the Horsemen to substitute themselves for members of Hannes Pike's retinue, specifically an electronics expert and Pike's bit on the side. Atlas bagsies the expert while Lula resignedly acknowledges that it's obvious who has to be the bit on the side. After they make the exchange, they go to the chip demo — where Lula is addressed as the expert, and it's revealed that the man Atlas is impersonating is the bit on the side.
• Aesop Amnesia: Apparently, the Horsemen forgot that working together is the secret to being able to pull off everything, and Atlas specifically forgot that his pride can interfere with the greater goals for both himself and the Horsemen as a whole. A good chunk of the movie is relearning these lessons. Justified, since Atlas never really learned to let go of his pride and Control Freak tendencies, since all the plans in the first film were his and they all went off spectacularly.
• Alliterative Name: Merritt McKinney.
• All Women Are Lustful: From the first time she meets him, Lula is trying to get into Wilder's pants. She succeeds by the end of the film.
  Lula: [to Wilder] I've heard it helps to... picture each other naked.
• Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy: Dylan sends the guards away so he can have another confrontation with Bradley in his prison cell. This time, though, Bradley turns the tables on Dylan.
• Ancient Tradition: The Eye, a group dating back to Ancient Egypt dedicated to protecting true magic and using it to "balance the scales of justice", are orchestrating the Horsemen's performances (though this time, as a test to see if Dylan will be an effective leader for the organization).
• Anonymous Benefactor: While the Horsemen know The Eye is providing them with what they need, they still don't know from whom they get their marching orders. Thaddeus turns out to be the one. Also used against them, when it's revealed that Mabry dupes Atlas into thinking that he's in charge of the Eye, manipulating Atlas into acting like The Mole.
• Anti-Villain: The Horsemen at least believe they're Just Like Robin Hood, specifically targeting people who are out to destroy people's lives.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Horsemen get away with everything again. Somewhat downplayed, however, because the FBI had a much smaller presence in this film than in the first one, leaving the Horsemen in a pretty unambiguous position as the protagonists, and this time their enemies were unambiguously worse.
• Bastard Bastard: That Walter Mabry is a devious and untrustworthy Jerkass is played up immediately, but the surprise is how he's related to the Horsemen's past — he's Arthur Tressler's illegitimate son.
• Batman Gambit: Most of their tricks, and magic in general, depend on being able to accurately predict how people will react and using that to their advantage. Merritt, the mentalist, in particular.
• Beard of Evil: One of the ways that you can tell Chase from Merritt is the scraggly soul patch that Chase wears.
• Big Bad: Arthur Tressler is behind the plot to release the new smartphone with a hacking chip to steal everyone's privacy, and is also behind the revenge plot on the Horsemen, wanting to get back at them for exposing his misdeeds in the previous film.
• Big Damn Heroes: Although Dylan Rhodes is able to escape from the Death Trap, it took him too long and took too much energy, and he collapses after opening the safe. Cue Atlas, swimming to the bottom of the river at night to pull Dylan to safety.
• Blasphemous Boast: Atlas' patter during his final act, claiming that he's going to do something God can't do, namely when he uses the strobe lights to make the rain appear to stop.
• Blinded by the Light:
  • Atlas uses a camera flash to blind a technician in the server room during the Octa job.
  • Later, the crew shine lights in Tressler's eyes to prevent him from getting a good look at the inside of the hangar.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: When Tressler confronts Dylan, the former taunts the latter, explains his whole plan, then throws the latter into a Death Trap that was actually an Escape Artist trick who was Dylan's father, no less, when the latter has already demonstrated skill at escape artistry. Justified by being goaded into this by Thaddeus Bradley, who is secretly a member of The Eye and looking out for Dylan.
• Brits Love Tea: The Big Bads, who are English, sit back and enjoy a spot of tea out of china cups while watching Dylan being sent to his apparent death.
• Broken Pedestal: Early in the film, Agent Austin gives Agent Rhodes a speech about how she idolized him when she was a trainee, and how disappointed she is to find him in the befuddled, grasping-at-straws condition his pursuit of the Horsemen has reduced him to. She's even more disappointed when she learns he's the Fifth Horseman. She comes around a bit at the end, though, after Dylan convinces her he still possesses the same commitment to justice that initially impressed her, just is pursuing it by other means.
• Buried Alive: Downplayed. Shrike's fatal backstory, where he got trapped in his safe at the bottom of the river, though we never get to see his dramatic struggle. This time, though, we're shown the event when the safe was thrown underwater, although we still don't see Shrike's struggle.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: After being captured, Rhodes goes off on Tressler about how his insurance company screwed over his family after the death of his father. Tressler retorts that he had no idea who they were, that they were nothing more than a bit in a long stream of data to him.
• Cain and Abel: Chase (the Cain) and Merritt (the Abel) play this out, with Chase resentful of his brother's success and actively plotting against Merritt, while Merritt only bothers with Chase only inasmuch as Chase tries to interfere with the Horsemen. Merritt even tries to convince Chase to back off before they have to have a grand confrontation.
• Caper Rationalization: The immoral deeds of the Horsemen are sold as sympathetic to the audience by making the characters act Just Like Robin Hood while picturing the victims of their crimes as bad people who had it coming.
• Casting Gag: Daniel Radcliffe in a movie about magic, but he's the antagonist this time and uses technology to pull off his tricks.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The reverse water flow trick. Demonstrated in Iong's Magic Shop as a curio that Jack plays with briefly, then used as Atlas's contribution to the lead-up to the final trick and to fool the villains into thinking that they were flying in said final trick.
• Chekhov's Gun: As before, just about everything the Horsemen do that is not part of one of their shows is setting up for one of them or outwitting the police. For example, Jack and Merritt are shown in the opening trying to teach each other part of their skillsets — card throwing for Jack, and hypnotism for Merritt. Both come into play later.
• The Chessmaster: Thaddeus. Just as before, the Horsemen never see it coming, and they in fact get frustrated in the end when they're not told how it's done.
• Clarke's Third Law: The sudden appearance in Macau appears to be this, in a Call-Back to the "teleporter" in the first film. The Horsemen were hypnotized to fall asleep in a fake tube and then taken to Macau.
• Complete-the-Quote Title: The film is about what you don't see and title is taken from the phrase for a common magician's trick; "Now you see me, Now you don't"
• Complexity Addiction: Beyond the Horsemen's usual antics, the plans of the Big Bad hinge on this — even after getting all of the Horsemen's personal info and location, they still lure them into an elaborate trap to snare them all and humiliate them and kill their leader. In the end, Thaddeus uses this against them, by convincing them to use a Death Trap on Dylan that he knows Dylan can escape from.
• Contrived Coincidence: Pretty convenient that the shape of the chip not only matched the pattern of playing card backs that the Horsemen were able to get, but also the lining of the suit Atlas wears for the second heist. It's suggested in the denouement that it wasn't coincidence at all, but instead set up by The Eye.
• Control Freak: Discussed. Both Henley and Merritt believe Daniel to be this. It's part of the reasoning for Henley quitting the team.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In the denouement, Thaddeus even admits that he should have told Dylan that he was working with Lionel effectively as an advance hype man the whole time.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: All the way through the movie, Jack tries and fails to duplicate Merritt's quick-hypnosis technique. The first time we see it work for him is when he uses it as part of the big final trick.
• Cycle of Revenge: Walter Mabry is Arthur Tressler's son, seeking to bring the Horsemen to justice for what they did to his father pretty much exactly like Rhodes. Mentioned by name during The Reveal of the relationship.
• Death by Origin Story: Shrike's son avenging his father's death builds the framework for the plot again, with the added wrinkle of knowing when to let go of revenge.
• Denser and Wackier: Much wackier than the first one, to the point where it can feel like a cartoon at times.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Arthur Tressler is ready to kill the Horsemen for the events of the first film, which merely cost him millions of dollars (no small sum, sure, but he's still trying to murder over money). He comes close to actually succeeding on Dylan.
• Dodgy Toupee: Merritt seems to think (or maybe know) it's a hair weave instead of a toupee, but whatever Chase has on his head, it's clearly fake and a source of derision from others. It's also a mark that Chase isn't nearly as competent as he thinks he is.
• Engineered Public Confession: What The Horsemen do to Mabry and Tressler at the climax of the film. Broadcast on to a giant screen on Tower Bridge and streamed live round the world to boot.
• Escape Artist: Lionel Shrike's specialty, and his final act is shown as a prelude. His son Dylan is also one, demonstrated both as someone capable of getting out of FBI handcuffs and able to get out of the prototype safe for his dad's final trick.
• Establishing Character Moment: Lula gets hers when Daniel returns from grabbing some fast food — she does a cheap trick to fake her death, which Atlas recognizes as fake. However, he falls for the indications she left as to her actual location, which allows her to sneak up on him and steal his soda.
• Evil Gloating: Mabry attempts a bit of this when his men capture the Horsemen, but the Horsemen undermine him the whole time by making snarky comments and pre-empting his explanation of how he did the Macau teleporter trick.
• Evil Twin: Merrit's twin brother Chase, who works for Mabry and Tressler and uses Merritt's tricks against the Horsemen.
• Faking the Dead:
  • Walter Mabry, who lampshades its use in the previous film by explicitly saying that Jack Wilder's doings in the previous film inspired him.
  • Also apparently Lula's specialty, as she regularly fakes injuries and death (her own and her helpers') in her tricks. Her faking deaths while the real trick goes on is her contribution to the climax.
  • Jack himself is still letting the world believe he's dead a year later (though begrudgingly so), at least until Walter tricks him out of hiding.
• Family of Choice: Near the end of the film, when the Horseman are being thrown out of an airplane to die, Merritt yells to the group that at least he's going to die with his family. Given that the plane turns out to be part of their final trick, it's uncertain if Merritt was just playing things up to sell the illusion of fear, or if he really does feel this way. Given his poor relationship with his twin brother, it's likely he does feel the other Horseman are family to him.
  Merritt: I just wanna say. I came into the world with the wrong family, but I'm leaving with the right one. I love you guys!
• Faux Affably Evil: Chase, Mabry, and Tressler. Particularly when the latter two enjoy a cup of tea while they watch Dylan presumably plunge to his doom.
• Fauxtastic Voyage: The Horsemen's final trick on Mabry and Tressler involves faking an aeroplane flight, when they are really on a barge in the middle of the Thames.
• Foreshadowing: Lula's first trick is key to the climax — the trick is meant to seem obvious, to get the mark to look at one thing while the magician is really doing something else behind the mark's back.
• Gone Horribly Right: Lampshaded in the finale as Thaddeus admits he and Shrike did such a great job making the world believe they were hated rivals that no one, especially Dylan, would have believed they were partners when Shrike had his fatal accident, thus sparking Dylan's vendetta against his father's trusted friend.
• Gray-and-Grey Morality: The Horsemen are, as before, smug jerks and thieves, but they're stealing from bad people. The only main character who stands out as a good guy is Natalie Austin. As before, she effectively becomes complicit when she agrees to give the Horsemen a head start in exchange for evidence against Mabry and Tressler.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: The Eye, an ancient order of magicians dedicated to "balancing the scales of Justice". More specifically Thaddeus Bradley, who was really Dylan's father's partner and has been watching him the entire time.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: While the Horsemen may have been able to expose Mabry and Tressler if they hadn't taken a move against the Horsemen regardless, their actions led to the specific downfall that they ended up facing.
• Hypno Fool: Merritt and Chase specialize in creating these, plus most of the main characters at one point or another becoming one.
• Hypocritical Humor: Atlas gets in several shots at Lula's early career, only to react similar to how she did when Mabry discusses Atlas's early magic shows.
• Imagine the Audience Naked: Lula tries to advice this when the Horsemen were about to perform at Octa. However, she insists that they picture each other naked instead.
• Impersonating an Officer: Done a few times — Jack masquerades as part of the security forces in the first heist, and Dylan Rhodes uses Agent Cowan's credentials to get Thaddeus out after Dylan has been outed as the Fifth Horseman.
• Impossibly Awesome Magic Trick: Several of them are analyzed and explained but a lot of them are not, and the ending makes it a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: The second trick/heist centers around the team using card sharp skills to fling around a microchip hidden on a playing card between the Horsemen, switching who has it to keep the security there from finding that it's been stolen.
• Infraction Distraction: How the Horsemen are able to complete the second caper. They know the chip will set off the alarm, so Jack deliberately forgets to drop off his wallet the first time he passes through the metal detector. He gets security to pass his wallet back through the detector on the way out, and Merritt throws the card holding the chip through the detector as the wallet passes through, so that the alarm seems to be due to the wallet instead.
• Insufferable Genius: Just about everyone in the movie, though Atlas and Bradley stand out.
• In the Hood: Jack Wilder is wearing a hood right before his Dramatic Unmask when the Horsemen explain how they pull off the final caper.
• Jerkass: Just about everyone, just as before: Daniel Atlas, Merrit and Chase McKinney, Thaddeus Bradley, Arthur Tressler, Walter Mabry, and Dylan Rhodes stand out.
• Just Like Robin Hood: They're stage magicians who rob banks and give the money to their audience — all of whom have been defrauded in some way.
• Kansas City Shuffle: The final caper plays out like this, with the villains predicting where Merritt is going to be and the Horsemen using that to set them up into position.
• Landmarking the Hidden Base: The end of the film reveals that The Eye has a branch headquarters inside Greenwich Observatory.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Jack Wilder is fully present in the trailers and marketing, pretty much spoiling one of the first movie's big twists that he faked his own death.
  • The identity of the Fifth Horseman was the final reveal in the first film; the sequel spoils it within a few minutes.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Thaddeus Bradley has a really nice setup in his prison cell, including a private cell, leatherbound armchair, and a computer with Internet access.
• MacGuffin: The chip with unprecedented hacking capabilities that would theoretically allow any computer system to be opened up by whoever had it. It's never used, and the denouement suggests that it was pre-switched with a MockGuffin created by The Eye to lure Mabry out.
• The Man Behind the Man: In a reverse of the previous film, Thaddeus Bradley turns out to be a member of The Eye as well, guiding Dylan and the Horsemen in a plot to keep Mabry from being able to hack into anything in the world.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Depending on how you interpret the Eye protecting "true magic".
• Meaningful Echo:
  • The movie begins with an ominous-sounding voiceover from Thaddeus. It ends with another very similar voiceover, but with what we've learned about Thaddeus and the Eye in between, all the stuff about making sure the Horsemen get what they deserve now has a very different ring to it (final narration is bold).
    "The Eye. It may not lie... but don't think for a moment that it can't be lied to. Seeing is believing. But is it truth? People see the Horsemen as noble Robin Hoods. Are they? Or are they common thieves? Depends on your point of view. Here's what you know. They robbed a bank in Paris from a stage in Las Vegas. They fleeced an insurance magnate of hundreds of millions of dollars and disappeared from a roof in New York. Always showering their devoted fans with money. Here's what you don't know. They left one man behind. Framed. Holding the bag. Me. Are you listening, Horsemen? When you emerge, and you will, I will be there waiting. Because mark my words, you will get what's coming to you. In ways you can't expect. But very much deserve. Because one thing I believe in is an eye for an eye.
  • "Why does your face seem familiar?" / "Now I know why your face seems familiar."
• Memento MacGuffin: Dylan's wristwatch again, which finally comes in handy — it has a blacklight that reveals where the pinhole is that will release the safe doors in the trick that killed his father, useful when Dylan is placed in that very safe.
• MockGuffin: It's heavily suggested in the climax that the chip never existed in the first place; The Eye faked its existence to lure Mabry out, and the guy in charge of the facility with the chip was an agent of The Eye the whole time.
• The Mole: How the Horsemen are found out, and it's played up by the villains to sow dissension amongst them. There are two, both unwitting — Atlas is tricked into setting his phone down on a pad that downloaded all of his phone's info to Mabry, who then gave that information to Chase, who hypnotized Merrit into setting up the rest of the Horsemen. For the heroes, there's also Thaddeus, who gets trusted by the villains the whole time, but who is actually leading The Eye.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: When the Horsemen were being checked by Chinese security guards during a heist, Lula distracts them by taking off her bra and throwing to the ground. She then snaps at a guard for staring at her barren chest.
  Lula: Hey! (whistles) My eyes are up here, man!
• Never Found the Body: Lionel Shrike's body was never found.
• New Year's Kiss: Lula kisses Jack when midnight strikes over the Tower Bridge in London.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • The Fifth Horseman continues the befuddled FBI agent act from the first movie, at least until it's blown when the smartphone job gets hijacked by the bad guys.
  • The proprietors of Iong's Magic Shop initially pretend to be much less than they actually are.
  • Used as part of the Horsemen for their final trick: using an obvious pattern to lure Tressler, Mabry, and Chase where they wanted them.
• Off with Her Head!: Lula is introduced using a Rube Goldberg Device to fake her own decapitation.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Lula's start at doing cheap magic tricks on YouTube are a source of derision, as not many people think she's moved on from very obvious and humble beginnings. Atlas in particular is dismissive, which gets a nod later in the film when Mabry similarly brings up Atlas's early career.
• Once More, with Clarity: During several of the "how did they do that" explanations, including when Mabry explains the fake Eye rendezvous and when the Horsemen reveal how they pulled off their final trick.
• Orbital Shot: Several times during the movie does the camera circle around the heroes in fast pace.
• Out-Gambitted: By the end, while Mabry's plan is pretty clever, it's clear he had no shot against The Eye and their preferred actors, the Horsemen. The chip was fake the whole time, and Thaddeus was The Mole making sure that the villains wouldn't succeed — and even got paid for it.
• Phony Psychic: Merritt and Chase McKinney, though they are quite open about the techniques they are using.
• Pick a Card: In the leadup to the climax, Jack plays a giant version of Three-Card Monte, even explaining that the point of the game is that anyone foolish enough to play has already lost. He doesn't play for the audience's money, though, but instead he plays it to prepare them for the final trick, where the Horsemen effectively trick Mabry and Tressler into playing it for the chip.
• Posthumous Character: Lionel Shrike, although this time he's shown in the opening flashback.
• Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: Lula's first famous trick apparently involved pulling a hat out of a rabbit.
• Put on a Bus: Henley Reeves apparently got fed up with waiting for the Eye taking so long to give them new missions and with J. Daniel Atlas at some point during the year of downtime the Horsemen had, and left The Eye.
• Race Against the Clock: For the villains in the finale, as they're trying to stop the Horsemen's reveal of Mabry's continued existence before the midnight deadline for the Horsemen's last trick. Their actions end up being their own undoing.
• Really Gets Around: Tressler had a surprising number of both legitimate and bastard children. As he and Mabry are both being arrested, he admits that there were so many women he's not even sure Mabry is one of his, and was only giving him the benefit of the doubt because he was useful.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Ties into the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane aspect of the movie, but many of the Horsemen's unexplained tricks could be interpreted as the Eye's "true magic". That said, however, all of those tricks are parts of their distractions, and The Reveal is based entirely on smoke-and-mirrors stage magic.
• The Reveal: This being a movie about magic tricks, there are several Reveals, mainly pertaining to said magic tricks but including the truth of Walter Mabry's father.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The thrust of the plot is about Arthur Tressler getting revenge on the Horsemen for financially crippling him in the first film, using his son as a proxy.
• Rube Goldberg Device: Lula sets one up in Atlas's apartment that, once triggered, ends with her apparent decapitation. This is an Establishing Character Moment that sets her up as a prop magician with a wicked sense of humour. Atlas isn't startled nor impressed.
• Secret Test of Character: As Thaddeus explains at the end, a large part of the movie has been set up by the Eye to test whether Dylan is really committed to justice or was only interested in personal vengeance.
• Sequel Non-Entity:
  • Henley's absence is given a two-line Hand Wave.
  • Alma Dray is not referred to at all despite being one of the agents in charge of the still ongoing Horsemen case and established as Dylan's love interest at the end of the first film.
• Shell Game: Jack explains that this is the purpose of Three-Card Monte/Find The Lady. Also, what the Horsemen are doing to Mabry and Tressler regarding who has the chip — none of them do.
• Ship Tease: With Jack and Lula, who flirt rather conspicuously at several points, particularly at Iong’s Magic Shop.
• Shout-Out: Walter Mabry's hijacking of the Horsemen's show at Octa has a very DedSec feel to it. Digitally masked voice, face on a screen with lots of visual glitching, and even a ctOS-esque hacking of doors. Further, he afterwards attempts alliance with the Horsemen, the way the DedSec rep speaking to Aiden tries to make an alliance with him; both also have an unpleasant reaction when the protagonist(s) refuse said alliance.
• Smooch of Victory: Combined with the New Year's Kiss above, Lula kisses Jack after the Horsemen just defeated Mabry and Tressler.
• Smug Smiler: Daniel Atlas and Thaddeus Bradley both infuriate people for how smug they act. To be fair, though, their smugness is usually justified. Less so for Mabry and Tressler, who are possibly more smug but with less justification.
• The Smurfette Principle: Lula self-admittedly replaces Henley as "The girl Horseman", this is only the first time of many in which she lampshades the trope.
• Stage Magician: The film stars a team of four stage magicians dubbed The Horsemen (who dropped the "Four" after the faked death of Jack Wilder), who use their acts to rob banks. While Atlas doesn't appear to have a particular focus, the other three each have their own areas of expertise. Merritt is a talented hypnotist/mentalist, Jack is more of a conman in the field of sleight-of-hand, and Lula is mostly shown faking death and injuries of herself and animals.
• Stealth Hi/Bye:
  • Lula does this to Atlas in her introduction, to prove that she's worthy of joining the Horsemen.
  • The Fifth Horseman pulls one on Natalie Austin at the end.
• String Theory: As part of Agent Rhodes's pegboard of Horsemen sightings at the beginning.
• Tarot Motifs: Once again, Dylan is The Fool, and its significance is discussed in the lead-up to the final trick.
• The Team Wannabe: Lula is initially this, and Atlas continues to treat her as such for much of the movie, not considering her a "real" Horseman.
• Three-Act Structure: As before, each of the Horsemen's "acts" essentially work as Title Cards for the story's own three acts (Setup, Conflict, Climax).
• Trash Landing: Used by the Horsemen to get away when the first caper goes awry, with a safe truck that they plant in the right place. Unfortunately, they didn't know that someone anticipated this and set up a dummy tube with a different truck.
• Turn Out Like His Father: Dylan shares his father's penchant for planning far, far in advance. Also, in this film, he shows that he also learned several of his dad's sleight of hand and, more importantly, escape artist tricks. Specifically discussed by Thaddeus at the end.
• Twist Ending: Thaddeus was in The Eye the whole time, and in fact was the one directing the whole thing. Also, the man in charge of the Macau science facility with the hacking chip was a member of The Eye the whole time.
• Undercover When Alone: A complicated example. The group realizes the chip they stole is fake somehow, but they decide to pretend it's real to lure Mabry out. Later on the plane, Mabry checks the chip on his computer and declares it real. The Horsemen react with surprise to this. Now, the plane is theirs, so they clearly set up the computer so it would register the chip as real. The only reason they react with surprise is to keep the audience thinking they aren't actually in control of the situation, as Mabry would have no reason to believe anything was wrong if they weren't surprised. Possibly they're doing it just in case Chase was the one who swapped the chip out behind his employers' backs, hoping the overall tension of the scene would obscure the fact that they're feigning their astonishment.
• Unfolding Plan Montage: Again, used in the climax, as the team explains how they pull off the final caper.
• The Unreveal: We never find out what was at the end of that carousel ride at the end of the first film, and we will likely never know what was at the bottom of the staircase at the end of this one.
• Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy: The Fifth Horseman's plan involving taking revenge on everyone who played a part in his father's death is deconstructed — he's called out for the fact that one of his victims wasn't even the one who made the decision in the case in question, plus the reveal that one of the people he blamed was actually in league with his father the whole time.
• Walking Spoiler: Dylan Rhodes. Knowing pretty much anything about him ruins the first film's big twist.
• Weather Manipulation: Atlas uses strobe lights and rain machines to fake being able to control rain to a ridiculously fine extent, making it appear to go in whatever direction he chooses. He even describes the basics of how it's done to onlookers so that they know he can fake weather, critical to the final trick.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Owen Case. The movie starts with the Horseman hijacking the OCTA launch and exposing him for extortion. Owen is stuck in a camera room, hypnotised by Merritt into speaking what he says. But after Mabry kidnaps the Horsemen, he's never seen again and we don't know if he's snapped out of hypnosis or is arrested for his exposure.
• Xanatos Gambit: One that works nearly perfectly by Walter Mabry on Atlas — if the Horsemen stick to the original deal, he gets what he wants, a chip that has unprecedented hacking abilities. If instead the team doesn't fully trust their would-be benefactor, Atlas has been conned into handing over the chip to an unknown agent working for the Eye... except that said "agent" is actually Walter Mabry the whole time. Only the Fifth Horseman's appearance at the handoff prevents it from working.
• You Killed My Father: Dylan's main motivation in the first film, deconstructed when it's pointed out that Tressler had no direct hand in his insurance company's decision to deny benefits to Lionel Shrike's family and that Thaddeus had been working with Shrike the whole time.

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