Alakazam!  Abracadabra!  A bunch of other groovy magician words!  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a film that takes the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, stirs in some magic and plays for laughs.  It’s got stars playing familiar roles that get you laughing anyway, a plot that’s predictable but entertaining, and more sequins and hair gel than Sigfried and Roy’s master bath.

A kid gets picked on because he’s not as big as everyone else.  Maybe not as cool as everyone else, or perhaps he just drew the short straw with his peers.  But he gets a magic kit for his birthday, and then presto — Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) is born!  His first trick at school gets him a friend who is just as excited about magic as he is, and the two are fast friends from then on.  As Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi), they take Las Vegas by storm.  Happy endings all around, right?  Not so fast; when young upstart “illusionist” Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) comes to town with his batshit crazy stunts, suddenly the crowds lose interest in Burt and Anton.  Can the two friends compete with a guy that holds his urine for 12 days?  Come on y’all, that’s not magic.  That’s just a urinary tract infection waiting to happen.

What’s great about Burt Wonderstone is that the film makes fun of all versions of The Magician.  TV magicians shilling for a buck, Las Vegas showstoppers, wannabes, street magicians and the new crop of “endurance illusionists”; they all get a good-natured ribbing here.  Burt and Anton are obviously the Vegas bigshots, and Steve Gray is definitely a Criss Angel/David Blaine hybrid.  But there’s also Olivia Wilde as Jane, a woman who starts out as their assistant “Nicole” (because Burt can’t be bothered to learn anyone’s name beyond their very first assistant) but has dreams of becoming a magician herself.  Add Alan Arkin’s Rance Holloway as the icon they aspired to be when they were kids, who is a long way from feeling the magic in his nursing home.  They all come together when Vegas honcho Doug Munny (James Gandolfini, hamming it up and having a ball) holds a contest where the winner gets a contract at his new hotel.  Of course Steve Gray has a few tricks up his sleeve….

Burt Wonderstone walks a fine line between the feel-good tale and wacky comedy.  With recent films like Bridesmaids, 21 and Over and Movie 43 going for the gross-out, many moviegoers may find Burt Wonderstone low-key.  Compared to the current crop of films looking to outdo each other, a film that just wants to make you laugh is almost an anomaly.  But there’s plenty to like here.  Carrell and Buscemi are great together, and their odd couple pairing of egomaniac narcissist and his friend who’s just happy to be in the game works well.  Wilde brings life to a supporting character, giving Jane depth and heart.  But it’s Carrey that folks will most likely hit this film to see.  His pseudo-magic BS (sorry David Blaine but I’ma call it what it is) runs amok, allowing the audience to do what we’ve always wanted to do when presented with tricks like these; laugh our asses off.  Steve Gray is one sandwich short of a picnic, and Carrey definitely milks the character for all he’s worth.

The crazy costumes, from Burt and Anton’s velvet-n-sequins excess to Gray’s Hot-Topic-Meets-Unemployment look, are a big part of the fun.  So is the movie’s soundtrack, which gathers together 80s funtimes with current hits.  Judas Priest, The Steve Miller Band, US3, Pitbull, Imagine Dragons…kudos to the music department for combining a group of songs that work perfectly.  Kudos also to director Don Scardino, a man who knows how to wrangle big-name stars after his many turns on 30 Rock.

Ahh magic.  Is there anything more k-e-w-l cool?  “That’s what magic does.  It blows your mind.”  My mind may not have been blown by The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, but it was pleasantly entertained.  Not a bad trick at that.