The Incredible Burt Wonderstone sees lifelong buddies Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carrell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) take their love of magic to a long running and highly successful Vegas casino show. Trouble is that it has become routine and both their friendship and the show are suffering. Into this mix comes Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), a street magician more about shocking and outrageous physical stunts than actual stunts, whose cable show is fast gaining popularity. Throw in Jane (Olivia Wilde) as the compulsory strong and independent, yet strangely reliant, female lead and you are good to go.
Where this movie shines is definitely the magic. Apparently David Copperfield (who makes a cameo) actually shared some of his secrets to make the tricks on the screen as genuine as possible. The love of magic really shows and adds much more depth than could be displayed just through the antics of the characters.
There are some great interactions between the main roles and a number of outright funny sequences. There is also plenty to make you cringe as some of the stunts pulled off by Steve Gray are pretty gruesome. Jane mainly appears in a role that could easily be labelled "the assistant" and the establishment of a plot device where she is a pretty good magician in her own right virtually goes nowhere until the very end of the film.
At the end of the day The Incredible Burt Wonderstone works as something for a good laugh. It does not push it's way up to comedy gold and there is plenty of material that just misses the mark, but it makes up for it with a number of genuinely funny scenes and pure magic of the, well, magic.
In a word - Abracadabra
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