The
Incredible Burt Wonderstone is painfully unfunny and
completely wastes a talented cast. There
are occasional moments that reminded me why I thought magic was cool as a kid. It also reminds me why I stopped thinking
magic was cool in the first place.
The “story” begins with young Albert celebrating his
birthday and for a present his mother gets him the magic kit of renowned
magician Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin). Magic
quickly becomes an obsession for him and he makes fast friends with classmate
and fellow magic enthusiast Anthony. They
eventually grow up to become Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton
Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) with a headlining act at the Bally’s Hotel in Las
Vegas. After working together for ten
years however, they’ve both gotten sick of each other mostly due to Burt’s
arrogance. If that wasn’t bad enough
their act is being upstaged by local (and quite possibly psychotic) street magician
Steve Gray (Jim Carrey). In an effort to
regain their audience, Burt and Anton attempt a stunt similar to Gray’s but
because of Burt’s laziness things go horribly wrong almost instantly and Anton
is hospitalized. Anton furiously severs
ties with Burt, who gets fired by the hotel soon afterward. Broke and out of work, Burt is quickly
reduced to working as an in-house entertainer at a home for retired Vegas
performers. There he meets his boyhood
idol Holloway who of course inspires him to resurrect his love for magic.
There are some potentially promising scenes (that mostly
fall flat) but for the most part the script for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is completely unbearable. Most of the jokes are unfunny and very
noticeably outdated. I’m pretty sure
this is one of those scripts that gathered dust on a shelf for several years
since most of the subjects they’re lampooning haven’t been relevant for some time
now. Jim Carrey’s character is an
obvious satire on street performers like David Blaine and Criss Angel. This could’ve been funny back in 2007 when
people actually gave a crap about those guys but instead comes off like a badly
written Robot Chicken sketch. Burt and Anton are also a less than subtle parody
of the magic duo Siegfried and Roy who are even more dated than Carrey’s
character since neither Siegfried or Roy has performed onstage since their
infamous tiger attack almost a decade ago.
Even
worse the movie finds it necessary to shoehorn a love interest for Burt in the
form of his attractive but bland assistant Jane (Olivia Wilde). Even if I were willing to overlook the fact
that Wilde is almost literally half Carell’s age, they have no chemistry
whatsoever making the romance feel even more forced than it was already. It also doesn’t help that Burt spends most of
the movie acting like a sexist douchebag (for most of the movie he deliberately
calls her Nicole) making her falling for him all the more implausible.
The only thing that makes this tolerable is Alan Arkin
who sadly isn’t in the movie much. Thankfully,
however his presence in here provides a short-term relief from the rest of the
film. He actually manages to make a
couple of scenes with Carell slightly funny (which with this script is like
squeezing blood from a stone) and pulls off his own amazing magic trick by
being the only cast member in this train wreck to not completely embarrass himself.
Almost every frame of The
Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a gigantic waste of time and an even bigger
waste of potential. They take a great
cast and do absolutely nothing with them.
Even worse, the script uses jokes so old they make those lazy spoof
movies look innovative by comparison.
Grade: D
Next Review: Pacific
Rim
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