Movie Review - The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)

Starring Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Olivia Wilde, Jim Carrey, James Gandolfini, and Alan Arkin

Directed by Don Scardino

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is one of those comedies with characters who have no basis in reality, are sometimes funny in their idiocy, but then become completely unbelievable when the script attempts to make them "more real" and "give them heart" by the film's end.  When you've created a character who bears no resemblance to an actual human being (as is the case in the title character played by Steve Carell), I have a tough time connecting...which is fine if you're going to make the character dumb and keep them dumb (which is a hard task to accomplish and still make them interesting to watch for two hours).   However, on the flip side, making a character over-the-top, unbelievably stupid, and a callous jerk and then expecting me to believe that they can become an incredibly intelligent and caring individual is a bit of a stretch that hardly ever works...as is evident here.

As a kid, Burt Wonderstone was a bit of a loner, but on one of his birthdays his mother bought him a magic kit and his life forever changed.  Burt partnered with his childhood friend Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) and the duo rose to fame as two of the most famous magicians of all time, earning a coveted headlining spot on the Las Vegas Strip playing to sold out crowds night after night.  The world of illusions is changing, however, and when the David Blaine/Chris Angel-esque Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) pops up on the Strip filming his tv show, the stuck-up Burt and the polite and slightly timid Anton are in for a rude awakening.  As Steve performs crazy acts like cutting open his skin and holding in his urine for a week all in the name of magic, Burt and Anton are pushed to the wayside in favor of this newfound form of illusion.

I laughed a few times during The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and despite my aforementioned qualms about stupid characters, Steve Carell does manage to play them quite well.  It's not his fault that during the film's second half, the screenwriters try to do a 180-degree turn for his character and attempt to make him intelligent and kind overnight.  It just doesn't work and neither does attempting to shoehorn in a romance between Carell and his "beautiful assistant" Jane (played by Olivia Wilde) who despised Burt one day and then loved him the next.

As much as I liked Carell, I disliked Jim Carrey.  While Carell can play someone over-the-top and still make them watchable, Carrey plays over-the-top in such an obnoxious way that it gets old very quickly.  That's been his MO for years, however, so it's not like it's anything new.  Rather surprisingly, with comic "greats" like Carell and Carrey in the mix, the actor who actually comes out on top in terms of comedy is Steve Buscemi.  There's a charm he carries when he's doing comedy that makes him relatable and enjoyable to watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - A Christmas Carol 3D (2009)

"Starring" Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright Penn, Colin Firth, Carey Elwes, and Bob Hoskins
Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Everyone knows the story of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's been told by the Muppets, by Mickey Mouse, and by Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Did we really need another re-telling? After seeing this new version of the tale, my answer to that is yes, as Robert Zemeckis has crafted an eerie tale that is definitely not kid-friendly and has inspired me to seek out Dickens' original tale.

I'm not gonna go through the story because every knows it, so instead let's just get to my thoughts.

The computer/image capture on display here is much better than we've seen in The Polar Express and Beowulf (the former of the two I'll be watching again soon as part of an upcoming new month-long blog feature...details forthcoming...I know...such suspense...). I'm still not 100% sold on the technique, though. It's obvious that I'm watching an animated movie, so why do I want the characters to look realistic? They can look fake...it's okay. That being said, I really felt like this film takes the image capture leaps and bounds beyond Zemeckis' two efforts I mentioned above. There's actually some emotion in the eyes which was seriously lacking before.

There were scenes in this that were quite cool...several, in fact. I really don't want to reveal them so as to spoil them, but I'll discuss one in particular. There's a scene with the Ghost of Christmas Past in which Scrooge goes back to see the Young Man version of himself as his ladyfriend decides to end their relationship. The way Zemeckis "films" the scene really packs an emotional punch...utilizing a long shot with a "moving" camera, it certainly felt real. There were several other scenes that were "cooler" than that, but this scene in particular was surprisingly powerful. It's unfortunate that in addition to these nifty scenes, there are two or three scenes that just bring the movie to a halt, appearing completely static and dragging the movie down a bit.

The flick certainly isn't kid-friendly. No funny jokes, no talking animals. This is dark, without a doubt. And I really dug it. There were some moderately scary moments here...not horror scary, but certainly some edgy moments.

As far as the 3D goes, it's a positive here. The film looked rich, layered, and deep. While not the best 3D I've seen this year (that'd shockingly be G-Force), this is the best 3D in an animated film I've seen for sure.

The RyMickey Rating: B+