The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a film about magic that
contains precious little magic in itself. Few things are more disappointing than
a film that blows a potentially rich premise through half-baked execution, but
this is just another studio comedy that's happy to settle for obvious gags and
a join-the-dots narrative, possibly hoping that our affection for the movie
stars on display with allow us to overlook the laziness of the whole exercise.
The ruse almost works – the stars certainly do work exceedingly hard to conjure
some laughs – but the sense of disappointment that hit me as I watched the
story go through the motions was an all-too-familiar feeling.
The frustration with this misfire goes deeper because you can
see glimmers of the film it could have been everywhere, particularly during the
opening 20 minutes, in which the characters are neatly set up. Burt Wonderstone
(Steve Carell) and his sidekick Anton Marvelmen (Steve Buscemi) have been
together since the two bullied outcasts bonded as children over their shared
passion for magic. For the past decade, they have been putting on a regular
Vegas show that has made them rich and famous, but jaded too. The film's depiction
of the two conjurers performing the same old tired routine is funny and sharp,
with the pair unenthusiastically following the rote steps that they can recite in their sleep before sniping
at each other between acts, while Burt's attention only seems engaged by the possibility of taking a female
volunteer from the audience and into his enormous bed.
The ridiculous Wonderstone, so arrogant but so oblivious to
the reality of what's happening around him, is the kind of egotist that Will
Ferrell has portrayed in a number of films, and Carell is good at expressing
the character's unshakeable self-confidence, which is ripe for puncturing. Wonderstone's
fall from grace inspires some amusing scenes – the "Hot Box" stunt
that severs his partnership with Anton is predictable but funny, and his
attempt to perform that double-act alone is a standout comedy scene – but all
of these gags are jettisoned when the film decides it's time for Burt to learn
the error of his ways. After losing his lucrative Vegas gig and being forced to
go out into the world to earn a living, Burt gradually undergoes a redemptive
transformation through the most hackneyed of means.
First, he takes a job as an
entertainer at an old folks' home, where he happens to meet his childhood hero Rance
Holloway (Alan Arkin), the old-school magician whose magic set first set Burt
on his path. He also has the support of a good woman, with Olivia Wilde's Jane –
an aspiring magician herself – helping him get back on track (although given
how inexplicably shoehorned-in the kissing scene between Burt and Jane is, I
suspect her real function is to reassure viewers that Carell's pompadoured,
makeup-wearing character isn't gay). Finally, there's the inevitable big showdown,
in which Burt and Anton must compete for the much-coveted regular show being
offered by hotelier Doug Munny (James Gandolfini).
All of this plays out exactly as you'd expect and every plot
or comic beat drops into place where required, without any risk of disrupting
the sleepy forward momentum of the storytelling. The actors are all given no
more than one or two notes to play (this is a colossal waste of Buscemi), and
nobody seems particularly interested in kicking things up a gear or freshening
up this lame material – well, almost nobody. The saving grace of The Incredible
Burt Wonderstone is Jim Carrey, who energises the picture every time he appears
by fully embracing the weirdness of his character Steve Gray – a masochistic street
magician who calls himself a "Brain Rapist" – and by bringing an edge
of danger to his scenes. Carrey's best performances of the '90s had a manic, unhinged quality that gave the laughs he produced an unsettling undertone, and Steve Gray
is an ideal role for him. When Burt and Anton start losing their audience to
Gray's extreme stunts, we can hardly be surprised, as his persona is so much
more charismatic, daring and fascinating than anything the leads can cook up.
If only The Incredible Burt Wonderstone could have tapped
into Carrey's performance and spread such inspiration across the rest of the
picture. If only they had hired a director who could really make the gags pop,
instead of Don Scardino, a director whose long career in TV is betrayed by his
mundane shot selection and slack pacing. With this cast and premise, The
Incredible Burt Wonderstone could have been a very funny comedy instead of a
film that raises a few chuckles before dissipating from the audience's memory
the second the end credits start to roll. It is a film that settles for
mediocrity, and the idea of making an audience disappear – the trick Burt and
Anton have always dreamed of pulling off – is one of the few aspects of the
picture that really resonates.
