I don’t think that it’s any big secret that I’m not the biggest fan of comedy movies (which is ironic considering that I’m a pretty damn funny guy) and the same is the case with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. For me, comedies thrive on one element alone: laughs — and like many other comedies, Wonderstone departs too much from the actual laughs to pursue a sense of uplifting drama that doesn’t add much. It’s a serviceable film that mines some absurdist laughs but I hoped for more from the pairing of Carrel and Carrey. It’s just another comedy in over its head that didn’t bother to find quite enough jokes but still manages to slide by on its earnest, if saccharine, sweetness.

Steve Carrell plays the eponymous character whose act with partner and childhood friend Anton (Steve Bushemi) reached its commercial success in the nineties and they’ve been running on fumes ever since. When new-age street magician Steve Grey (Jim Carrey) upstages their act, Burt and Anton find their star plummeting fast. In the aftermath, Wonderstone struggles with lost celebrity as he tries to rediscover the magic of being a magician.


Much like the characters within, the filmrelies heavily on physical comedy to mixed results. Jim Carrey seems to inhabit the space that made him such a riotous physical performer twenty years ago but my nostalgia for the “golden age” of Carrey comedy seems at odds with my current comedic sensibilities. Funny faces and guttural screams of pain aren’t what they once were. Perhaps I’ve grown up or maybe the world is moving into an age where comedy has to be rife with darkness in order to truly resonate but, one way or another, I couldn’t really summon the belly laughs that many other people in the theater seemed to.

Sure, Carey scores some laughs with his outrageous street “magic,”

 particularly a scene involving an egged-on spectator, but he does little more than these flashy, infrequent bits. My personal favorite character in the film is probably Buschemi’s Anton because he’s so meek and peculiar. He doesn’t do anything particularly funny but he’s undeniably the heart of the story.  

Olivia Wilde‘s Jane, on the other hand, I had trouble buying. When she confessed that she was picked on at school for doing magic, my suspension of disbelief went out the window. We’re talking about Olivia Wilde. This Olivia Wilde. Once again, the uninspired casting of the youngest, most beautiful girl possible just discredits the narrative they’re trying to sell us.

I think my biggest issues with comedies in general is that they almost always try and shoehorn in a clunky emotional arc about the protagonist finding love, rediscovering himself or reconnecting with a lost friend. All three are the case in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and even though it works a little better here than usual, it’s just yesterday’s white bread repackaged. I know that flavor and I’m not particularly fond of it. For the bit of warmth we feel for the film and the characters, we can point to Carrell who infuses an inimitable quirky earnestness in all of the characters he plays, even though he starts off as a total douche-bag here.

As the dramedies of a post-Judd Apatow culture seem to be steadily increasing and consequently wearing themselves thin, it’s good to see a traditional comedy –  however safe and traditional it may be. Its conventionality though is no excuse for the obvious lack of comedic gold prepared for this one. If only the writers had locked themselves in a dark room for a little longer, this might have been more memorable but ultimately it’s a serviceable one-and-done that, no matter how inoffensive, is hardly worth recommending.

C-

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