Review: ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is a comedy about a magician who has lost his way, forgetting why he got into the profession to begin with, and his life decision, coupled with the changing tastes of the public, have forced him into a downward spiral, from which only magic can save him. How ironic. With a strong cast, and more than a few good jokes, this movie ends up being more entertaining and likable than it would have seemed possible at the outset. Really, going in to this movie, it looked like a hunk of crap. So when in fact it turns out to be pretty decent, that’s a win for everyone.

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” starts with an extended montage that shows how the magician Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carrell, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) started out, how he quickly took on a partner in the form of Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi, Youth in Revolt, Barton Fink), and their rise to stardom, and the story really kicks in when we see that after ten years of being on top, Burt has become the biggest, disenchanted douche bag possible, being openly rude and hostile to every single one of his coworkers and employees, and using his magic show for one purpose only – getting laid.

Coinciding with his assholery and his fear of change, which makes his act incredibly stale, is the rise of street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), who is a cross between Criss Angel and David Blaine, and who prefers outlandish stunts over actual magic tricks, like holding his urine for a long amount of time, or breaking the world record for “not blinking.” As he gains popularity with his stupid gimmicks, Wonderstone finds himself quickly becoming persona non grata throughout Las Vegas, forcing him all the way down the ladder to performing at an old folks home. At this low point he meets his old magician idol, Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin, Argo), and they help each rekindle their respective love for the art of prestidigitation.

The whole cast sells the hell out of this movie, which also includes James Gandolfini, Olivia Wilde, Gillian Jacobs, Jay Mohr and Brad Garrett, and really Jim Carrey is the stand out, which is no surprise. He plays his role perfectly, and applies his typical Carrey manicness and comedic sensibilities but fitting them perfectly into the mold of this pretentious magician. And Carrell goes all out asshole in this one, and it is fun watching him play a character that feels so ahead of everyone else and who can’t wait to brag to every lady he meets about having the largest bed in all of Las Vegas.

Really the whole story pitting these two characters together is well done, though you think a movie about rival magicians would have resulted in some grand magic-off between the two of them, as opposed to a little tiny magic-off at a 10-year old’s birthday part and at a separate talent show-style audition (long story). There is also a lot of wasted opportunity in having Olivia Wilde’s character an aspiring and talented magician, but only showing her perform one small trick and never doing anything ever again. Why introduce another magician character if they are barely going to perform any magic.

Which brings me to my main complaint with most movies featuring magicians and magic acts in general. Because this is a movie and is all based on trickery anyway (the whole illusion of movement through rapidly displaying sequential images thing), filmmakers often feel fine with using camera and editing tricks and of course these days CGI to make the tricks possible, and this is disappointing because if we are going to make a movie about the wonders of magic and how cool it is and how it can instill awe in people, then there should be actual magic tricks in there, done for real and just captured on camera, instead of using CGI to make a bird come out of a salt shaker or forcing the audience to really suspend their disbelief when characters do tricks that are absolutely impossible. It’s one thing to watch a person perform an illusion and to know that he is doing a trick somehow, because at least he is doing a trick, whereas in the movie a lot of these tricks are not tricks, they are special effects done later in a computer. It just feels wrong is all.

So the movie is okay enough, with some good jokes in there and a great Carey performance to pull the whole thing through. The story itself is a little lazy, written out in broad strokes and lacking in real nuance. But then again, how much nuance is there supposed to be in a broad comedy about rival magicians? So while this is a typical rise and fall and redemption story with all the familiar beats, it still elicited more than a few laughs, and does end on a final scene that is really hysterical, and it is always good to send your audience out the door laughing at the final images. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” isn’t exactly going to be an enduring comedy that people will talk about and enjoy for years, but it will pop up here and there in people’s peripheries and they will be surprised that this dumb looking movie was actually fairly decent.