The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opens in 1982, on a crisp suburban street populated with era cars and manicured lawns. Young Burt (Mason Cook) is chased by some extras from Goonies. He is pushed up against a tree by a bully. The boy tries to win sympathy by cheerfully capitulating to the bully’s torments, but he is told no one will ever love him. After Burt wiggles out of the jam, he heads home where the point is reemphasized. It turns out it is Burt’s birthday, only his mother had to work a double shift. She’s left a wrapped present and bag of cake mix. Burt makes his own birthday cake and eats it in front of the TV, watching the contents of the present: a Rance Holloway instructional magic cassette. It is an incredibly depressing scene, and yet, the way it is played – pushed just over-the-top and ever so wry – you can’t help but giggle. It’s how The Incredible Burt Wonderstone works: whipping pitiful and dejected moments into giggle-filed parodies.
After the birthday scene, a quick credits montage sketches the life that follow’s Burt’s birthday. Inspired by the VHS cassette, magic becomes his obsession. He meets another outcast at school and the two grow up to be the magic duo Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carrell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi), a highly successful magic act. At their height, they have hit the Vegas dream, with their own studio, multi-million dollar contract, packed audiences, and, sex release forms for their, ahem, enthusiastic groupies.
The early scenes are fueled by the ridiculousness of Burt and Anton’s act, a homoerotic, flamboyant, and ridiculous show that mixes sequined coats, elaborate stage props, and cheesy music. During their rise, Burt has become an egomaniac, and Anton the doting recipient of his prissy ire. You know something has to break the tension. That something is Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), the newest thing in comedy, a David Blain-style street magician whose grotesque antics – like slicing open his cheek and pulling a playing card out of it – have dated the Wonderstone act. The two friends lose their gig, their friendship, and suddenly find themselves having to fight their way back into relevance.
As a comedy, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone cozies up nicely with Anchorman or Austin Powers in that it works by creating a caricature of a flamboyant frontman who encapsulates the most absurd eccentricities of a historical moment and is slightly askew of reality. Carrell and Buscemi are decked-out in sequined suits featuring over-sized, triangulated collars and spandex pants. The two actors overplay their choreographed antics just enough to ramp up the ridiculousness. A flaring here, a gesticulating pose there, there is a restrained sense of slapstick which works remarkably well.
Carrey too, in his typical overblown abrasiveness, manages to land his fair share of laughs, even if his Grey wears as the movie drags on. There is some dragging; after Wonderstone employs a familiar, off-the-shelf comedy plot replete with the kinds of barking (James Gandolfini) or needless sideshow (Jay Mohr) characters we expect in the genre. And Alan Arkin, fresh of his Academy Award nod, is a little adrift here, if only because his character’s storyline gets ramped up just as Wonderstone slips into an overly long fourth act. But if you’re are looking for laughs (and why else would you be sitting in a movie called The Incredible Burt Wonderstone), Carrell and company deliver with above grade frequency.
