Review of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) by Seancriswell — 18 Mar 2013

Full disclosure, I'm a Carell fan-boy, otherwise I wouldn't have gone anywhere near this movie. I should have stayed away. This is the type of comedy that has no appeal to my funny bone whatsoever. This film is trying desperately to be Anchorman but falls flat in every way. The first 20 minutes gives us a glimpse into the two main stars childhood. Presumably to give us some insight into the characters motivation, and to help us connect with them. Strike 1 and strike 2. Why would you spend 20 minutes of a comedy setting up your hero to be sympathetic to the audience if in the very next scene you plan on making him an unsympathetic egomaniac, inexplicable. Every single character in this movie except for Olivia Wilde's is played completely over the top. Correct that. Apparently they were told to play the character over the top, and then crank it up another notch.

Of course all of this is forgiveable in a comedy if it does the one thing that everyone expects, make us laugh. As you can probably already tell Wonderstone fails here as well. Two jokes landed for me in an hour and a half. When the name of Carrey's characters television show is revealed and the scene after the credits start rolling. Except for those not even a chuckle. It's the same way as I feel about The Office post Carell (in case your wondering why I'm a fan-boy).