It is amazing to me that this concept has yet to be explored by Hollywood. I guess it is inevitable that it eventually happened. A few years back a magician named David Blaine came onto the scene doing street magic that changed the way everybody looked at the business. The traditional magic show lost its luster a little bit. People like David Copperfield and acts like Siegfried & Roy became a stale and overdone display. When Blaine sort of stepped out of the limelight, a magician named Criss Angel took over and took street magic to a whole new level. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is an obvious poke at Criss Angel and a imalgorithm of Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy.
Criss Angel’s television show is called “Mind Freak”. Jim Carrey plays a character named Steve Gray, who’s television show is called “Brain Rape”. So, as you can see, there is no hiding who the target of the movies jokes are for. Gray is a guy who is doing crazy tricks like driving nails into tables with his head or pulling cards out of his bloody cheek. So when Gray starts gaining popularity and Wonderstone’s (Steve Carell) ticket sales begin to drop, as you can guess, Burt and his partner Anton’s (Steve Buscemi) ride at the top of the magic world comes crashing down.
Alan Arkin, James Gandolfini and Olivia Wilde round out a nice cast of characters who put on a good show. Surprisingly though, with comedians like Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, I didn’t find "Wonderstone” all that funny. Yet, there are a few moments that I was glad that I was the only one in the movie theatre on a beautiful Friday afternoon because I laughed harder than I had in a long time. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is mildly funny for the most part but that doesn’t stop it from having an interesting concept that is always interesting to watch. I mean, who doesn’t like a good magic show.
The creators could have taken this incredible concept movie to a better level in my opinion, but to their credit, they never cheapened their film with gimmick jokes or crudeness. As I said in the beginning though, the comedic angle on magicians in Las Vegas is a fresh one. I just wish that the comedy had been more effective throughout the film, instead of just at certain times. It was fun to take a trip to Vegas for a bit though, and it was fun to take a different look at a always interesting and mysterious business.
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