Review of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

I didn't have high expectations for this film to begin with and to be honest it was a bit more engaging than I would have expected. But the promises of the films extravagant concept and it's cast of comic gold leaves a lot to be desired. Set in the world of Magic, the film centers on a magician named Burt Wonderstone played underwhelmingly by a seemingly uninspired Steve Carrell. It chronicles quickly his rise from a young geek to a lead magician on the Vegas strip. But after a wannabe, stomach churning magician played by a sexy but forced Jim Carrey shows up to make waves it causes conflict with his long time partner, a better than expected Steve Buscemi and their show suffers for it. It ends up in their friendship and show breaking up and from that point on chronicles Steve Wonderstone's self discovery and journey back on top. If your feeling this all sounds fairly melodramatic it's because it mostly is. Despite some inspired funny bits with Olivia Wilde the film's stand out surprise comic performance and a few moments with Alan Arkin as a former magician it's all fairly generic and predictable and not very funny. That being said although the film misses a lot more than it hits it's still fairly engaging on a story level and somewhere along the way you end up caring just a smidge about the characters. But all that falls apart in an unfunny mean third act that confuses the films seemingly solid message. Overly mediocre. 2.5/5