Trailer Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is an interesting new comedy with a stellar cast. Burt (Steve Carell) was always interested in magic. As a kid he used to watch the famous magician Rance Holloway(played by veteran actor Alan Arkin) on television. Burt began to idolize Holloway and he decided to team up with his school chum Anton (played as a grown up by Steve Buscemi) and become a magic double act. Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton achieve great success in Las Vegas as adults and their style is like a pastiche of Siegfried & Roy. Unfortunately their act eventually becomes rather stale and audiences stop going to their shows. To make the situation worse a new street magician called Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) arrives on the scene to steal their limelight. Gray is a walking parody of street magicians like Davie Blaine who see random endurance feats as magic. Burt and Anton split up and Burt quickly goes broke while Grey becomes the next big hit. While visiting a nursing home Burt meets an elderly Rance Holloway who inspires him to team up with Anton again. Burt remembers why he loved magic so much in the first place and together he and Anton try to beat Grey with a new trick.

Don Scardino has plenty of experience with comedy and he has a great cast to work with here. Steve Carell and Buscemi are always entertaining and perfectly cast as the two hapless magicians. Jim Carrey was outstanding in movies like Ace Ventura and he appears to be having fun here as the lunatic street magician Steve Gray. He has gone back to playing comedy roles in recent years with movies like I Love You Phillip Morris and now this.  The supporting cast is also good and includes Olivia Wilde who plays Burt’s upbeat assistant Jane, James Gandolfini as Burt’s agent Doug Munny and of course Alan Arkin as Holloway. Jay Mohr also appears as another magician known as Rick the Implausible.

Magic shows have changed a fair bit over the years and it’s entertaining to see a movie like this poke fun at the industry. Grey thinks up some outrageous and absurd endurance tricks that should have comedy film fans in stitches. In this film Jim Carrey seems to be using the physical slapstick comedy that worked so well in Ace Ventura and the Mask.

The movie has the potential to be one of the best comedies this year and hopefully it will deliver.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is out on March 15th.

Have a look at the trailer and let us know what you think.