Film Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Rekindling the Magic and Their Act

I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but I’m fortunate enough to imagine the arc of someone’s weekend there, marveling at the spectacle of fluorescence down the boulevard, waking up with empty pockets and regret. It doesn’t have to be as extreme as The Hangover to feel the daily monotony of street performances and cabaret renditions sinking in and under your skin. Then imagine living as a performer, dancing and singing identically every night, trying to impress a fresh audience under the guise that your current performance has the same zest and zeal as the first.

This is one of the existential journeys that The Incredible Burt Wonderstone could have taken more seriously, but this is a comedy, so why examine anything too closely? The eponymous character played by Steve Carrell dons a bedazzled jumpsuit and Liberace wig with his longtime subordinate partner Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi), two magicians with their own Vegas show. They are fulfilling their life-long dreams formed ever since the similarly bullied souls found each other at the lunch table. Inspired by a magic kit video from Rance Holloway played by a spirited Alan Arkin (one of his tricks is the invisible skateboarder), the two burst with an elementary passion and joy, making little things disappear, and tinkering with the box instructions.

Cut some thirty years later and their ingenuity has landed them their own magic show complete with vanishing acts and switcharoos for a bottom-line, foul-mouthed hotel owner (James Gandolfini). But the duo’s relationship is anything but its former self. Burt is an egocentric womanizer and Anton is his apologist for the emotional collateral damage Burt exerts to stagehands and colleagues. It’s a shame Buscemi isn’t used to his capability, often the straight man to Carrell’s tasteless jokes which come at his character’s own expense. This is the kind of comedy tale that has evolved recently, built on tragic plot points that are given put downs and wisecracks for the audience to remember its genre and forget how dark a picture like this could be.

The magical duo, confined by their unchanging act, soon becomes threatened after they see street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) garner large crowds on television. Gray, the Criss Angel stand-in who uses witty synonyms for his tagline “Mind Freak” is not the sleight of hand stage magician Burt has trained to become. His acts are more outrageous, more obscene, more magnetizing to watch, and also use more body parts. He’s currently the fresh act of magicians and the Incredible Burt and Anton begins to lose steam. Jane (Olivia Wilde) joins the team, a former stagehand with her own magician aspirations, but becomes little more than a female prop to continue a show with dwindling crowds.

Its plot becomes as plodding as Wonderstone’s monotonous theme music “Abracadabra,” that most surely will have you mindlessly reciting it for the next few days. David Blaine-type stunts go epically wrong for the former schoolmates in an effort to regain attraction. The two are out of their league, but of course Burt refuses to see reality, even as their show is cancelled.  The film settles nicely into its troped second act, with a disheveled protagonist on the outs and a fresh face on the rise, quite similar to Anchorman or any other Will Ferrell-centric standard.

Carrey, the master of physical comedy, does not disappoint in this medium, but after his first encounter, his comedy rarely overpowers the fact that Steve Gray is all that he appears: as sleazy and as selfish as Burt. So someone must make things right, drum up spirits again, and reinvigorate a lost magician. With help from an aging Rance Holloway, Jane takes on this task and eventually becomes romantically linked, which is not so much surprising as it is dissatisfying. Wilde, who is perfectly capable of being funny and carrying a film, must play second fiddle and sometimes third, remaining submissive, even when she reaches a final glory.

That’s because this is Steve Carrell’s movie, and as much as director Don Scardino, whose career is extensively in television, tries to form sympathy—Steve Gray shoving a puppy down Burt’s pants for example— we are devoid of it. The predictable narrative might work fine on the half hour 30 Rock, but Scardino, along with writers Jonathon Goldstein and John Francis Daley, is content to hope that a feature length keeps the same formula. By the time we should be rooting on a comeback for Burt, we’d rather see him fail because he has done nothing to prove his tanned, hair sprayed, and Maxwell Smart stylized voice worth. Carrey’s Gray, covered in tattoos and straightened long hair, at least has personality.

The final magic trick to save Burt and Anton is only funny because of how preposterous it is to imagine, and later seen in the credits, how it’s actually performed. Part of the great fun of magic is that a magician never tells his tricks, and thus that momentary mesmerizing reveal contains all of its splendor and mystery. The illusions in this film feel like a friend incorrectly guessing, “is this your card?” over and over. We’re revealed its tricks to get a laugh, but like any magician declassifying his act, we are left with more disappointment than any real wonder.

2/5

Film Review: The Words

A Writer with Nothing to Write, Everything to Claim

Sometimes it’s easy to spot a film whose ambition exceeds its execution. In the case of The Words, which hovers over heavy thematics and ethical implications, you don’t need to search far. In fact, you begin hoping that you’ve overlooked something, that there might be more to its calculated timeframes and predictable mannerisms. For a film with this title, it’s disappointing how easy it is to read into things.

Unfortunately, Bradley Cooper cannot resurrect its lackluster appeal. Beyond his inane antics and machismo in Hangover-A-Team romps, his more cerebral side, like his presence in Limitless has been a pleasant dichotomy. Cooper, who continues his Dr. Jeckyll half in this film, enlisted friends Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal to write and direct. The script lacks intended depth and pull but the imagery succeeds aesthetically and emotionally. In this case, visuality must substitute substance, which for a film about the written word is a daunting task.

Cooper plays Rory Jansen, a struggling (aren’t they all) novelist in a rather furnished Manhattan apartment with his wife Dora (Zoe Saldana in another strong supporting role). He continuously finds rejection from publishers, slowly diminishing his sense of worth with each unfortunate responsorial letter. But this, we find in the film’s first scene, is not reality, or is it? From what we can tell, this is a secular, written world, coming to life from its author’s lips -Clay Hammond’s (Dennis Quaid)- at his book reading. In front of a large audience, he reads, taking us back into Rory’s life and the moral consequences every writer has the possibility of facing.

In the middle of the couple’s honeymoon, Rory finds an old briefcase, nearly hidden in a Paris antique store. Its value isn’t in its rustic appeal, it’s what’s inside: an old manuscript. He reads it straight through, glued to every page, every word. It is a masterpiece, and with no title, no name attached, it could be his, enabling the film’s chief dilemma. But he claims it as his own, and with his self-assured accreditation, rises to fame and fortune, name in bookstore windows and coffee shop tables, his unchallenged guilt free of blemish.

Clay’s crisp words, however, filter through at the beginning and ends of chapters, mentioning an old man by Rory’s home that is obviously building to become a key component- and I’m not spoiling anything when I say this- obviously the unknown writer responsible for this master work. Played by Jeremy Irons, there is wise, spirited life in this cheated man who confronts Rory in the park and drops the writer’s bomb. Irons has such demanding presence, haunting his work’s famed author while divulging his own story. He speaks of his manuscript- forgotten on a train- about 1950s post-war love and subsequent heartbreak, displayed again as another story within a story, this time more compact and expressive about another writer Ben Barnes.

It’s here the tone changes in the face of a major ethical mishap, but nothing feels damaging as the smoldering shockwave of a broken moral compass should. The old man drags out his virtues to Rory, who crumbles in shame and pity, both of which cannot be remedied by anyone around him. How devastating it must feel as a writer to accept failure, find false success, and by newfound reputation alone, make one’s own, sub par novels passable. I wish I could have felt more of his devastation.

This is not a story of giving up, this is a story of giving in. It is also a story of taking responsibility. If only the filmmakers gave us an understanding of the power of the written word. Besides the bland, foundational sentences that slowly meander from Clay’s mouth, we never hear prose from Rory’s plagiarism. To feel the love and loss from the old man, to experience the prestige and then shame felt from Rory, shouldn’t we read at least a little of what everyone else in this fictional world has?

Back in the contemporary, real world, a young woman (Olivia Wilde) mysteriously lingers after the book reading and accompanies Clay home to discuss his book. Her character is symptomatic of the film’s ineffability, its struggle to make twists, which drop with regularity, impactful. Who is this woman and why does she stalk this seemingly ordinary writer? Most of these questions are left unanswered, and oftentimes, they’re the wrong ones being asked.

2/5

Cowboys and Aliens Review: An Intergalactic Western Showdown

The opening scenes in Cowboys and Aliens are maybe the slowest action-wise in the entire movie. They would be perfectly acceptable in a 1970s rodeo flick, one that has a desert whistling score and some deputy-bandit dialogue. But this movie is called Cowboys and Aliens, and after a while, the formalities of the Main Street broo-ha begin to beckon for an extra-terrestrial pickup.

To his credit, Jon Favreau, the director of this western/ sci-fi blockbuster, needed some foundation for his film to take flight. Part of this process meant convincing enough people, and maybe even himself, that Daniel Craig, the acclaimed british spy could put on a Dr. Jones cap, rub some sweat off his brow, and sound like a regular southwest shooter. The gamble pays off. He does keep Mr. Bond’s fighting tactics however, but they’re noticeably dynamic, especially after 3 whiskeys at the local tavern. He mounts his stolen horse, puts on the spurs, and giddyups into town clearly a force not to reckoned with.

Craig plays Jake Lonergan, who wakes up in the desert with Jason Bourne like amnesia but still possessing an unbeatable punch. He has a strange gash in his side and an impenetrable, mysterious metal bracelet up his wrist and decides to ride into town to patch his wound and his memory. It’s there he finds himself an outlaw as well as a town supplemented with typical character clichés. Theres the weapon smart preacher (Clancy Brown), the passive doctor (Sam Rockwell), a guilt-free gun slinger (Paul Dano), and his cattle rancher father, the town’s lone financier and step father to an adopted Indian, played by Harrison Ford. And instead of a small asian kid yelling Doctah Jones, its a shy deputy’s son (Noah Wringer) who looks to Ford for manhood.

Then of course there is Olivia Wilde, one of only two main women in the entire film, who plays Ella Swenson, someone completely entranced by outlaw Jake and his inability to remember. Then spaceships dive toward the earth, rocketing blue lasers and fiery explosions upon the vulnerable wooden town. The space crafts scorch the dirt and in the process use whip-like rope to snatch people from the ground and up into the sky. Ella seems to be a bit less scared than her fellow towners, somewhat out of place like her pristine groomed features amidst the dusty rubble. Her look is attractive and seductive, but like many of the minor characters is too clean cut for the grit of the 1870s.

What happens next is almost too predictable. Rival-holders put their temporary grudges aside and unite to go bring back family and friends and find out what this intergalactic presence really is. Craig leads the pack, struggling with his memory, but his individual charisma still has enough tear to keep his crew intact and alive. Ford on the other hand has a tough love shield that must be preemptively cracked, a more complex sub hero than we have been accustomed to. Indians get involved, and different languages must be spoken to garner respect, a more interesting subplot at points than their ultimate quest. Ella continues to jog Jake’s memory amidst his wrist zapping of tiredly familiar rendered aliens.

The story for the film was drafted by 7 writers, yes that’s right 7, and it becomes clear there is lack of focus. Favreau takes what I am assuming to be a compromised script and makes an enthralling attempt at a strong crescendo, but minor deviations keep it from majorly excelling.  Part of the problem for the Iron Man director is his penchant for incorporating mementos from other films, and in this day and age its hard not to. He incorporates the gusto of recent themed films combining 3:10 to Yuma’s angst with District 9′s subversive alien population. Pitting the cavernous outback of True Grit with the curiously uncharted nature of Cloverfield, which just happened to be directed by JJ Abrams, a collaborator with Spielberg already this year.

This just might be the fault of an overguiding presence. Steven Spielberg, infamous for his alien and human interactions has his producer tag on this summer flick as well and it seems Favreau’s creativity is bridled by the looming Spielberg shadow.Yet what Favreau misses in clear direction he makes up for with a sensitive approach to each character. It seems as though in most Spielberg based movies the human element is what rises above the shaky mythology of outer space life. Whether, in Cowboys and Aliens, it’s the loyal barking dog, a boy getting his first real knife, or the bartender learning how to shoot a gun, theres enough pull to root for them, how far that pull goes, well that depends on how much you like blood thirsty aliens and uncharacteristically worn cowboy hats.

There is  no lack of action however, and that may be this movie’s greatest strength as its descriptive title may show. Daniel Craig’s blue eyes pop from the screen because everything surrounding him is orange cavern or fiery molten rock. It’s almost like Favreau made his movie budget surrounding the investment of Tony Stark enterprises, especially with that nifty wrist gun. All that heat, smoke, and dust is enough to parch your throat at points, which makes you wonder why water is only offered once the entire movie. The sky is filled with the super natural, and the ground apparently with superhuman hydration.

One thing is for sure though; entertainment value this summer has been through the roof explosion wise. Whether you include plot substance a part of entertainment may redefine the “blockbusters” this year. Sure to bring in a pretty penny, Cowboys and Aliens has a little bit of everything: Indians, Aliens, and Cowboys, but not a lot of something. But then again, the title is Cowboys and Aliens. What did you expect?