I laughed when I first saw the trailer for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. I laughed more than once and I knew that I would see it as soon as I could.
Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) is a famous stage magician, who has worked for a number of years as a headline act in Las Vegas with his partner, Anton (Steve Buscemi). The two men keep their magic smooth, their hair perfect and their magic traditional. They are a huge success, despite losing any passion they had for the art. Unfortunately, their success is jeopardised when a hot, new talent comes along in the shape of street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey). Burt and Anton are past their prime, out of touch with reality and desperately needing to prove that they can still make memorable magic.
A lot of the laughs here may be obvious, but that doesn’t make them less funny when they’re delivered so well. Carell is consistently hilarious as the egotistical Burt, Buscemi is the better man, but also very funny, and Jim Carrey has his best role in years as the upstart obviously based on the likes of Criss Angel and David Blaine. Solid support comes from Olivia Wilde (as an exasperated assistant always being called Nicole, despite her name actually being Jane), James Gandolfini (the employer who doesn’t like the way ticket sales are going) and Alan Arkin (as the man who fired up the passion for magic in a young Burt). Jay Mohr and Michael Herbig are also very good as a couple of lesser magicians who seem to spend more of their time in a bar than working on their acts.
Writers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who also worked together with Michael Markowitz on the screenplay for the hilarious Horrible Bosses) don’t go out of their way to make every line of dialogue a laugh riot, but that’s not a problem because the whole concept is so preposterous that it effortlessly maintains a decent humour level. There are no surprises here except in the way that the script manages to mix all of the laughs with a reminder of why magic appeals to so many and why many of us always hope to see something that we can never hope to figure out. After the pomp and extravagance, the plot takes a nice journey to show how the simpler tricks can inspire awe and make people happy.
Director Don Scardino has been doing some solid work on TV over the past few years (including the very popular 30 Rock), but this isn’t his debut feature and there are no signs of indecision or unease here. Everything is nicely balanced, with predictability being the only black mark against it.
That’s my view, anyway. It seems as if most people disagree, going by some other reviews and the lack of any BIG box office bucks, but I hope some people read this and either give it a chance or at least check the film out when it becomes available to rent and buy.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is in UK cinemas now.
DIRECTOR: DON SCARDINO
WRITER: JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN, JOHN FRANCIS DALEY
STARS: STEVE CARELL, STEVE BUSCEMI, OLIVIA WILDE, ALAN ARKIN, JIM CARREY, JAMES GANDOLFINI, JAY MOHR, MICHAEL HERBIG
RUNTIME: 100 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
Film Rating: 
