The humor in “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is even less sufficient than I anticipated and doesn’t quite meet my standards of hilarity.
When choosing which movie to review this week, I decided to go with one that I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like. Maybe it would prove itself to me, Jim Carrey would not play a tacky character, and I could be humbled for having judged a book by its cover, so to speak.
Alas, I was disappointed on all three of those fronts, though I’m glad I at least gave it a chance.
The film is essentially a story about a middle-aged adult male who does not quite have his priorities straight and needs to make changes in his life. This isn’t exactly a new role for Steve Carell to play, but kudos to him for doing what he is good at.
As a child, Burt and his best friend Anton were bullied for being a little bit different, so they used magic tricks to prove to everyone that they were indeed different, but in the best of ways. As adults with their own magic show in Las Vegas, Burt developed an ego and taste for expensive things. All the while, the duo’s show had become old and outdated.
In comes Steve Gray, played by Carrey, a so-called street magician, who starts to steal Burt and Anton’s thunder and eventually the fan followings and their assistant (Olivia Wilde). Gray specializes in stupid and dangerous stunts that do not seem to qualify as traditional magic but are simply for entertainment at its lowest form: Reality television.
As the events of the story unfold, Burt is left with much less than he has grown used to, and he is dealt a harsh reality after having lived in a world of magic show business for so many years.
The movie contains a lot of silly one-liners that were anything but memorable, and to be honest, that kind of sums up the whole film. There were many moments where I thought to myself, “Well that was a little bit funny but not really funny enough to put forth physical effort to laugh at.”
I love to laugh as much as the next person, but comedies like this with the over-the-top, cheesy acting are really not my jam. The timing on a lot of jokes seemed off with several actors. The comedy was not sincere, but mostly dim-witted, and it just left me sitting awkwardly in the theater wondering how the movie would progress and recover from jokes with such bad taste.
Like I said, I chanced it when I chose to see “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” instead of “The Call,” so my dislike of it was a high possibility, despite trying my best to have an open mind.
I rate “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” two out of five suns because there were a few decent parts, and I understand that comedies with somewhat unintelligent humor are what people like. It’s just not my cup of tea.
I guess I would much rather sit at home watching hours of “My Drunk Kitchen” on YouTube than spend $6.50 to go see good actors play silly parts in a brainless comedy. I would definitely laugh more.
