The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: March 15, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
21
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 14, 2013
The movie is pleasant. It's reasonably funny. But the one who gets the real laughs here, the hard laughs, is Carrey, who plays the kind of role he should be playing - a complete lunatic. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 13, 2013
This is also one dark and wickedly funny comedy. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 13, 2013
The movie itself is too cautious and unimaginative to bring off what a great magic trick — or comedy — should do: make us laugh out loud with surprise. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 13, 2013
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone draws a lot of goodwill from the basic likability of its star performers. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 13, 2013
The third act of Scardino's movie is very funny, and its finale featuring the exposure of an impossibly successful illusion is flat-out brilliant. It's just too bad that the movie's opening act is so sleight of humor, damaging the movie's potential. Now you see it. Then you don't. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMar 14, 2013
It’s too cheesy and predictable to be a real miracle, but by Vegas standards, it’s a winner. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 12, 2013
Few jokes take us by surprise, but enough comic haymakers land to make “Burt Wonderstone” credible, in not exactly “incredible.” Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 15, 2013
As ever with comedies like this, all the really funny stuff is in the opening 20 minutes. But it's entertaining stuff, with a scene-stealer from Alan Arkin. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatthew LeylandMar 11, 2013
Carell and Carrey shine like sequinned suits in a comedy that allows them endless fun with the dressing-up box. More narrative verve and it could’ve been The Prestige in a big-cat wig. Read full review
60
VarietyJoe LeydonMar 10, 2013
Neatly balancing brightly sentimental comedy with slightly edgier funny business, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone pulls off the impressive trick of generating laughs on a consistent basis while spinning a clever scenario about rival magicians waging a Las Vegas turf war with a wide multi-demographic appeal. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinMar 13, 2013
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has its cornball charm, thanks largely to the confident work of old pros Carell, Arkin, and Buscemi, but it’s ultimately a big, gaudy, predictable show, strictly for the rubes and tourists. Read full review
58
Film.comWilliam GossMar 10, 2013
Like the back half of its namesake, Wonderstone isn’t terribly hip, edgy or new itself, just amusing enough to pass the time. While Scardino and friends do manage to end the film on an admirably nutty note, this gathering of comedic minds ultimately fails to produce any true movie magic. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 14, 2013
For my first trick, allow me to write off an entire picture by merely affixing to the title a one-word contraction: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone isn’t. Please hold your applause. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 14, 2013
A generic, fitfully funny mainstream comedy that doesn’t nearly get the best from its name-brand players but doesn’t qualify as a desecration, either. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 14, 2013
Part manic comedy, part would-be heart-warmer of the "follow your bliss" variety, its odd combination of tones and situations leads to as many awkward, uncertain moments as funny ones. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 14, 2013
What might have been an entertaining, silly comedy opts for pseudo-earnestness over movie magic. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMar 14, 2013
Because Mr. Carell doesn’t go in for the kind of all-out caricature that Mr. Ferrell embraces with a manic glee, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has an underlying soulfulness that cuts against its farcical aspirations. This is not to say that Mr. Carell isn’t just fine, only that his performance, as impressive as it is, lacks a shark’s bite. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 14, 2013
Overall the film never finds its footing, with its awkward shifts in tone accentuating the unease. There’s something a little off, and it’s Carell. We want to like him in comedies. It’s a big part of what’s made him a star. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone never really gives us the chance. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 14, 2013
The hair is funny, in part, because not much else is. “Burt Wonderstone” is a lazy, underwritten imitation Will Ferrell movie. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellMar 14, 2013
Jim Carrey kills it every time he shows up in his supporting role as street magician Steve Gray. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 14, 2013
This is a really lively, fun and high-spirited comedy. If you leave after half an hour. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 14, 2013
The material isn't sufficiently funny to allow me to forgive the film's feeble storyline and two-dimensional inhabitants. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMar 12, 2013
The film's biggest surprise is that, after Wonderstone loses everything, we're expected to feel something besides impatience as he learns to become a better person—and gapes like a child at the wonder of magic. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterMar 10, 2013
Enjoyable but as familiar as the old-school routines its magician heroes dish out. Read full review
45
NPRMark JenkinsMar 14, 2013
There are some funny bits and characters around the edges of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, but its core is empty of humor. In fact, this purported satire of Las Vegas magicians is a three-void circus: the script, the central character and the main performance. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensMar 14, 2013
The best thing in Burt Wonderstone, besides that final gag, is the second-sickest: Jim Carrey's performance as a David Blaine-esque street magician named Steve Gray. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMar 14, 2013
Like a creaky Vegas act desperate to please, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is so eager you can’t help wanting to like it. But you also can’t help wondering if something better is playing in the theater next-door. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraMar 11, 2013
The inconsistencies in tone - is it an Anchorman-style farce or something more serious? - distract from likeable turns from the leads. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickMar 14, 2013
Steve Carell is fatally miscast as an arrogant, flamboyant third-rate magician in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, which by all rights should have been a second-rate Will Ferrell vehicle. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 14, 2013
Magicians have been pulling rabbits out of hats for ages. And yet, with all this talent, no one can make a decent script materialize. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 14, 2013
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone serves as a reminder that everything in a film has a chance to go wrong before a film begins filming. In other words: It's the script, stupid. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineChris Cabin Mar 13, 2013
The film is overtly suspicious and critical of the new and only serviceably romantic about the old. Read full review
20
Time OutDavid FearMar 12, 2013
No matter; this aggressively humorless farce would play like a dead rabbit pulled out of a hat, regardless of the casting choices. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 14, 2013
Alan Arkin does the best trick, bringing a dollop of humanity to the role of Rance Holloway, the magician who was young Burt's inspiration. Apart from Rance, the whole production is slovenly nonsense, photographed on the cheap with blaring ghastliness. Yet it poses an intriguing mystery. Did the producers appeal to a denominator even lower than common by making their film as dumb as possible, or did it just turn out that way? Read full review
0
The PlaylistDrew TaylorMar 10, 2013
It's a comedy so out of touch that jokes disappear before they're even delivered, as if by magic. Read full review
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