The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Somewhere around in the trailer of the incredible burd wonderstone I couldn’t help but laughter. Many times I believe and knew that I would be watching this film in no time.

Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell), a successful stage magician, has worked for a number of years in Las Vegas with his partner, Anton (Steve Buscemi). The two men maintain their magic, magazine-cover model good looks, and the classic style of magic. While their success is great, they have lost any love for the craft. This success is though threatened by street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) who seems to be the flavor of the moment. Burt and Anton are not only washed up but also living in the past, and they need to show that they can still perform great magic.

There is the reality of not a few chuckles in this film, but in their context they seem to work perfectly. Carell is amusing all along as egocentric Burt, Buscemi is a better man but even he is funny, and Carrey is back at his top form years as too hot-headed drawn from Criss Angel or David Blaine. The strong supporting cast includes Olivia Wilde who plays crazed assistant who keeps being called Nicole while her actual name is Jane, James Gandolfini who is the boss who is quite unhappy about ticket sales and Alan Arkin who was the first to kindle the fire of magic in young Burt. Jay Mohr and Michael Herbig also do well as two third rate magicians who appear to be more embroiled in bars than their acts.

Screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, in cooperation with Michael Markowitz (the screenwriters for the comedy Horrible Bosses), do not make every joke or nearly every line of dialogue funny, but that is acceptable due to the fact that the overall idea is so ridiculous that it easily carries a moderate humour.

There are no twists in this narrative except maybe what the writers of the script created, a blend of laughter and explanation as to what makes magic so fascinating and why many of us wish to witness what we can’t possibly understand. After all the glitz and glamour, the story then proceeds to highlight how some of the simpler tricks are capable of amazing the audience and putting a smile on their face.

The director of the film is Don Scardino who is said to have done quite a good job in television in the last couple of years, including 30 Rock which has quite a following, but this isn’t his first tilt at a feature film, so there’s no fear or confusion apparent here. All facets are nicely moderated except if there could be one name or phrase that could be used as a single smear across the otherwise insightful narrative: predictability.

That’s my view, anyway. Other reviews and the absence of any BIG box office bucks suggest otherwise. But I hope some people read this and give it a chance, or at least check it out when it becomes available for renting and purchasing.

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