Steve Carrel is a pretty good everyman, he was in the Office, he was in Get Smart: he is filled with a benign neglect, an industrious middle class bogueness. In “Date Night” he was Jack Lemmon without the glimmering. Perhaps he is the harmless American of our dreams: the good but silly fellow.
In “The Incredible Wonderstone” he plays his benign neglect to the hilt, as the bored egotistical magician Burt Wonderstone –a sort of heterosexual Sigfried to Steve Buscemi’s gentleman Roy, Steve is woefully miscast. Obviously, Burt Wonderstone would have been perfect for Jim Carey who isn’t very good as his younger competitor steadily stealing Burt’s audience.
A disastrous attempt to beat Jim at his own, extreme punishment ala David Blaine, leads to the duo breaking up and Burt getting fired. Beyond down on his luck, Burt takes a job entertaining octogenarians a card trick away from the long goodbye where he meets the magician whose work fueled Burt’s initial love of magic.
You can fill in the rest for yourself by including love interest Olivia Wilde.
The first half of the movie is draggy because Steve can’t play the role. Jim would’ve have been a sly seducer, a magician of hearts and egos, he would have made enervation fun to watch. Steve makes enervating enervating.
But once Steve hooks up with an as always first rate alan Arkin, and begins to transform, the show spins on all wheels and the closing trick is just wonderful, so wonderful you forgive them all the holes in the plot and all the tedium of getting to where we knew we were going. Neither Steve and Steve nor Steve and Olivia have much chemistry but they have enough and when Steve learns the errors of his way, it is very sweet indeed. The ending is rewarding, a minor pleasure.
Musically, Steve Miller’s “Abracadabra” is Burt and sidekicks theme song, and I love it, I don’t care what anybody else says.
Movie: B
Music: B