Ryan McNeil
Every year when I was younger, David Copperfield used to host a TV special. The special would build up to some new grand illusion that would involve an escape, making something disappear, or sometimes both. To my young eyes, these specials came with the showmanship and wonder that best exemplifies magic. These stunts and spectacles looked to impress and amaze the audience with something they knew couldn’t be true.
That all gave way to David Blaine trying to hold his breath underwater. Suffice it to say, it didn’t come with the same desired effect.
THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE begins by introducing us to a pair of magicians: the titular Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buschemi). Together they have been delighting audiences for years with the same act and the same tricks. It has made them both rather rich and landed them a sweet gig headlining at Bally’s in Las Vegas. However, not all is well in the world of pulling rabbits out of hats.
Their act has grown stale. They annoy their assistants so much that the women continue to quit on them. This results in a production assistant named Jane (Olivia Wilde) being grabbed backstage and given the assistant’s job mid-show. As if that’s not bad enough, they suddenly find their audience being siphoned off by a weirdo named Steve Gray (Jim Carrey).
After being called on the carpet by Bally’s owner Doug Munny (James Gandolfini), the weakness of their act is underlined once and for all. After a stunt designed to appeal to Steve Gray’s audeinec goes terribly wrong, the pair are fired and the friendship is ended. It all leaves Burt Wonderstone to pick up the pieces of his broken act and see if he can remember why he got into magic in the first place.
Let’s begin with the obvious: THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE isn’t a great movie. Many of its characters are cartoons, and many of its gags don’t land. However, it isn’t a terrible movie either. It embodies a lot of the falsity that makes up Las Vegas, and has a lot of fun skewering what “magic” has become in the new millennium.
For most of the first half of the film, Burt Wonderstone is ridiculous. He is usually seen wearing a wig that makes him look one half Siegfried Fischbacher and one half Andre Agassi. As if that’s not enough, he speaks with a pretentious put-upon accent. Presumably, the whole persona is designed to stoke panache and mystique. Of course, what it does in actuality is embody the opposite – a person with no charisma or stage presence. In addition, back here in the real world, it leans a little too hard on some of Steve Carell’s most obtuse and outlandish characters. So by the time the first act ends, not only is Wonderstone a failure, but he’s a failure we don’t care about.
Eventually though, around the time Wonderstone hits rock bottom, he stops wearing the wig and speaking with the accent. Not co-incidentally, this all begins to happen when he meets his idol. It’s at this moment – the moment Wonderstone stops being a caricature and begins to care about his talent and his audience – that we in turn begin to care about him. Unfortunately, for many in the audience, this moment arrives too late.
It’s a pity too, since the turn not only plays up Wonderstone’s honest want to connect with his audience, but it also underlines the absolute absurdity of the “magic” Steve Gray is performing. true illusionists take the stage to make audiences believe in something that isn’t possible. We know that the woman isn’t really being sawed in half, but yet we get caught up in it because of the razzle-dazzle that distracts us from everything else. What Steve Gray is doing – and what the actual performers he’s based on do – is frathouse daredevilism. It’s an entire career likely started with the words “I’ll bet you twenty bucks you can’t…”
Had the film began evoking a little more David Copperfield and a little less Gob Bluth, this counterpoint (and the audience idiocy it evokes) would have played better. Unfortunately, because the film spends so much time barating us with silly self indulgence, audiences will have a hard time falling for the true passion and humanity on display in the final act.
I don’t think its a co-incidence that the film finds its heart when Alan Arkin shows up. Of all the characters in the film, Arkin’s Rance Halloway seems to most understand both the sly deception and the wondrous joy present in any magic act. I can’t help but believe that if the script had found a way to bring him into the story sooner and with greater presence, that he would create a counterweight to all the silliness on display.
I think Wonderstone is supposed to be unlikable in that first half. He let fame get to his head and lost focus on why he got into magic in the first place.
It’s nothing special, but I will say that I enjoyed the film.