“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is the 2013 comedy directed Don Scardino. It tells the story of the duo of Burt Wonderstone (played by Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (played by Steve Buscemi) who have been dazzling Las Vegas audiences for ten years with their magic act. Recently though, a shock magician has been dazzling audiences. His name is Steve Gray (played by Jim Carrey), who performs under the name of “The Brain Rapist” (wonder why they didn’t use that name in the advertising?). When Steve starts to take crowds away from the duo, Burt refuses to change. He believes that he’s doing nothing wrong and that his act is perfect. This causes a fall out with his lifelong partner Anton which effectively ruins his career. Burt now has to rise back up to the top and show that old fashion magic is better than shock stunts.
This is a movie that starts off fantastically but then slowly turns into a predictable slog. The best jokes are found at the beginning where we see how much a jerk Burt is and his view on his job. There is a point where their doing the “swords through the box” trick and Burt is locked in with a woman named Jane (played by Olivia Wilde). She’s supposed to just manage things behind the stage but, since Burt pissed off the previous assistant, she’s rushed onto the stage to fill the recently vacated spot. She ends up trying to dodge the swords as they go through the box while Burt calmly tries to hit on her.
However, once Burt and Anton have their falling out that, you’re watching the classic “Jerk needs to stop being a jerk to be happy again” story. This is such a tedious story type since we all know how it’s going to end. Although that isn’t to say that they don’t try to pad the movie out with the different stunts that Steve Grey is doing. This would be fine but we rarely see how the stunts turn out so it just feels like padding.
The acting is fine all around, but there’s no one that stands out. Steve Carrel does his usual good job although he could have beefed up his comedy a bit more. Steve Buscemi is better as Anton but he disappears for the whole second act.
The only one that really seems out of place is Jim Carrey as Steve Grey. He definitely looks the part but Steve Grey is a restrained character which isn’t Carrey’s strong point. They should have given him more chances for him to do Carrey’s natural yelling and outrageous comedy.
Now, if you couldn’t tell, this movie is about stage magic which is interesting to do with a comedy. This provides a chance to mix practical movie magic and traditional magic, but this movie cheats by using CGI magic. There’s a point when Burt and Steve are competing against each other at a birthday party and Steve burns “Happy Birthday Judas” into his arm. The burn is so clearly CG that you can obviously tell. It raises the question why couldn’t they just have make up people come in and make it look like a burn?
This is a movie that squanders the potential it had. The story starts strong out of the gate but trips and falls over the finish line. Overall, there is nothing about this movie that makes it stand out from the crowded comedy genre. And worst of all they cheat on the whole “magic” aspect of the film. You’re not missing anything by skipping this movie, wait until a better comedy comes out later this year.