The world of Las Vegas magicians is a perfect place to set a comedy. From the glittery costumes, the elaborate poses and over-the-top theatrics, it practically begs to be parodied. But do the jokes magically appear, or do they do a vanishing act?
For years Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) ruled the Las Vegas strip with a magic show that made Siegfried & Roy look understated. But their dominance of Sin City’s showrooms disappears when a David Blaine type, guerrilla street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) starts a turf was in town. His daring act makes the glitter and glitz of their show look well past its sell-by date. To stay relevant Wonderstone and Marvelton stage their own daring stunt which just may be their grand finale.
I kept waiting for “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” to pull a rabbit out of its hat and take full comedic advantage of it setting, and yet the bunny never appeared. There are gags here and there that feel completely organic to the story—the Wonderstone’s elevator is so opulent people mistake the it for his suite, for instance—but it is the main character that lets us down.
Carrell is too likable an actor to pull off Wonderstone’s egotistical, one-note womanizing act. The fake tan and mullet do some of the work, but it never feels real, and even less so when he falls into Woody Allen territory during his romantic redemption with a love interest 23 years younger. On top of that his gearshift down from narcissist to nice guy doesn’t come off as anything but generic and predictable. Nothing magical about it.
Carrey fares better. No one plays controlled chaos like Carrey and his increasingly self-aggrandizing behavior is the best thing in the movie. Of the supporting cast Buscemi and Wilde weren’t really given enough to do to make any lasting impression. They play decent, nice people and in a movie like this featuring raging egomaniacs and insane illusionists nice guys and gals do finish last.
Arkin isn’t given much to do either, although he does have a nice gag or two, but at least he remembered to pack his trademarked deadpan delivery in his bag of tricks.
“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” has the odd laugh and a likable the cast that brings a lot of goodwill with them but the film’s worst trick is how it will make much of that goodwill disappear by the time the end credits roll.
Jim Carrey is back acting opposite wildlife, but unlike the “Ace Ventura” movies, this time out he’s not talking out of his bum, or doing anything which parents may take issue with. “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” is total family entertainment, paced for young ones but with enough story to keep older kids and parents interested.
Loosely based on Richard and Florence Atwater’s classic 1938 children’s book the movie sees Carrey playing the title character, a ruthless NYC real estate agent who inherits a penguin from his late, explorer father. Through a series of misunderstandings one penguin becomes six, and the entire brood becomes a birthday gift for Popper’s young son. As the penguins take over his life, Popper’s professional career—he’s trying to engineer a deal to buy New York’s legendary Tavern on the Green restaurant—goes into a deep freeze but his formerly flightless personal life soars.
There are laughs in the film, more for the kids than the adults, but I’m not sure I would classify this as a comedy. Carrey has a few funny moments, the penguins—who could be more rightly called Mr. Popper’s Pooping Penguins—engage in some animal antics, and Popper’s “p” popping personal assistant takes alliteration to new heights, but the movie is more about heart than humor. It’s about the importance of families, of spending time with the ones you love, whether they are ex-wives, estranged kids or flightless tuxedo-wearing birds.
Carrey finds a balance between his expert slapstick and the more naturalistic style of acting he’s flirted with in movies like “The Majestic.” The clowning is fun, but his journey to becoming a better dad is the more effective and memorable part of the story.
This isn’t the first time Carrey has appeared in a live action kids’ flick but the dark edge he brought to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” has been replaced with a sweet side, despite looking up penguin recipes on-line as an initial solution to his penguin problem.
“Mr. Popper’s Penguins” isn’t a classic children’s film, but in a summer cluttered with movies like “The Hangover Part 2” it is a welcome family alternative.
You’ve seen the ad on television where Jim Carrey says that he “just wanted to bring something good into the world,” well, Jimbo, this ain’t it. The Majestic is syrupy, predictable crap that makes one long for the days of Ace Ventura and The Mask. Jim Carrey’s performance literally screams “Please nominate me for an Oscar! I promise I won’t talk out of my ass anymore.” Carrey is a talented actor, but this rubbish is beneath him and if this is the kind of movie he wants to make, I’m glad he’s giving up his Canadian citizenship. Hollywood can have him.
Julius Caesar was allegedly stabbed twenty-three times when he was assassinated. Psalms, the longest book of the Bible, is the 23rd book of the Old Testament. The regular human body temperature is 98.6 (9+8+6=23). According to the Dr Pepper company website, the soft drink “is a unique blend of 23 flavors”. The new Jim Carrey movie is the 23rd project Joel Schumacher has directed, counting both his film and television work. Throughout history the number 23 has been associated with mystery. Numerologists believe that like the digits 7 and 13, which also carry some baggage, the number 23 has a notorious past. Is it all coincidence or is there really an enigma surrounding the numeral?
In the new psychological thriller, The Number 23, Jim Carrey plays dogcatcher and happily married man Walter Sparrow, who is convinced that the number has a grip on his life. His life seems ideal until the day of his thirty-second birthday when a strange dog leads him on a chase to a mysterious cemetery, biting him on the arm before disappearing.
The incident with the dog makes him late to pick up his wife after work. She kills time by browsing through a used bookstore where she finds a book called The Number 23. She buys it for him and soon he becomes obsessed with the novel, seeing similarities between his own life and the story’s main character. Soon he is consumed by it, seeing the influence of the mystical number everywhere and it leads him down a rabbit hole that threatens his sanity and the well being of his family.
If you’re a fan of Carrey’s comedies, then maybe you should stay home and rent Dumb and Dumber instead of laying down your cash for this overly dramatic and campy thriller. Carrey’s “man on the brink” routine isn’t believable, and 23 minutes into the film I knew his overblown performance was pushing it off the rails. Sparrow is a dual role. Regular obsessed guy with a nice family before cracking open the book; grimacing tattooed alter ego afterwards. Neither characterization rings true. He seems out of his league, and no amount of mugging for the camera is going to fix this monumental piece of miscasting.
The story is kind of silly, but that hasn’t stopped other supernatural thrillers from taking flight. The thing that grounds The Number 23 is the complete lack of reasonable human behavior in the story. Instead of reacting with fear or alarm that the family’s breadwinner has lost his mind, his wife (played by Virginia Madsen) and young son totally play along. I don’t know about you, but if my dad asked me to go and dig up a skeleton with him, I might ask a few questions first.
Joel Schumacher directs with his usual stylish eye for detail, but his technique is no match for this overacted hokum.
A quick glance at Jim Carrey’s IMDB listings for the last few years reveals under appreciated movies like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, an ill conceived remake in the form of Fun with Dick and Jane and one out-and-out stinker, Number 23. It’s been a tough time to be a Jim Carrey fan. It seemed the stuff that made him famous, the trademarked rubber-faced antics and physical mayhem, were relics of his early career. But just when it appeared that asking Carrey to speak out of his bum again would be akin to suggesting Bob Dylan take a throat lozenge along comes Yes Man, a return to form from a man who began talking himself just a bit too seriously.
Carrey plays Carl Allen, a sad sack who still stings from his divorce three years ago. He lives alone, only leaves the house to go to work or to the video store and has almost worn out the “ignore” button on his cell phone keypad. A chance encounter with an old friend leads him to a “Yes is the New No!” self help seminar, lead by the charismatic Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp). He’s part Dale Carnegie part Earnest Angely. His message is simple; there’s too much negativity in the world, and if people just said “yes” more often things would get better. Carl takes the advice to heart and after a rough start soon finds that his life does improve when he answers yes to everything.
Like a singer who always wanted to act, Carrey has often tried to deny his gifts as the new Buster Keaton and play serious. Not satisfied with his enormous facility for physical humor he has sought out roles like the above mentioned Number 23 and The Majestic. Trouble is once you get famous for talking out of your bum it’s hard to turn back and be taken seriously. He’s a good light-dramatic actor but he is a stellar physical comedian and Yes Man finds a good mix between the two.
The love story—Zooey Deschanel is the totally charming love interest—and transformation from schlub to super charged Tony Robbins type give him a chance to act, while the script also affords nice opportunities for Carrey to indulge in some good old fashioned Dumb and Dumber style buffoonery.
Yes Man is essentially Liar Liar with a more positive twist. In both films he plays a self absorbed man who finds his life—and the lives of those around him—gets better when he changes his attitude. Both are feel good movies and both feature Carrey’s unique brand of slapstick. Yes Man is more of a fable, with gentler humor than Liar Liar, but if you liked that 1997 film, you enjoy the new one.
According to Wikipedia, books written specifically for children have existed since the 17th century.
Some of those books and stories have endured — Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Some have not — remember the 1658 book, Orbis Pictus in Bohemia? However, stories for kids remain among the top sellers at bookstores and on line.
Hollywood has been paying attention. As far back as 1910, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz graced the silent screen and this summer, 101 years later, the parade of movies adapted from children’s books shows no sign of slowing.
Next week Jim Carrey brings the Richard and Florence Atwater book Mr. Popper’s Penguins to life, and this weekend Heather Graham stars in an adaptation of Megan McDonald’s Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer.
In the world of kid lit, the name Dr. Seuss looms larger than most. His books are classics. Unfortunately, the movies made from his work tend not to be.
Although Theodor Geisel (the good doctor’s real name) had great success on the small screen with animated specials like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, he was reluctant to allow his creations to be turned into films.
Two uneven adaptations — Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat — so annoyed the writer’s widow, Audrey, that she vowed to never again allow live-action versions of her husband’s books.
Apparently animation adaptations are OK, and in 2008, Horton Hears a Who!, a big CGI film featuring the voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and Carol Burnett earned good reviews and broke the Dr. Seuss silver screen curse.
One writer whose work seemed made to entertain kids at movie theatres was Roald Dahl. From Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (later remade by Tim Burton as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) to James and the Giant Peach and Fantastic Mr. Fox to The BFG (Big Friendly Giant), his stories have easily adapted to live-action, stop-motion or traditional animation treatments.
Of course, not all movies that sound like adaptations of children’s books are the real deal. Think twice before you rent The Woodsman.
The title may sound reminiscent of Little Red Rising Hood, but it’s a dark drama about decidedly non-kid-friendly events and although Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is based on Hansel and Gretel, be careful. It’s the stuff of nightmares for little ones.
Before I saw the Jim Carrey version of “A Christmas Carol” I wondered why remake a story that has been done so often and so well in the past. I’ve seen it and I’m still wondering.
There have been at least 21 versions of the story made for the big screen and dozens more for television. Director Robert Zemeckis and his high tech bag of motion capture tricks don’t add anything to the story, in fact, occasionally his CGI actually gets in the way.
Zemeckis wisely hasn’t toyed around with the 166-year-old story. Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a miserly bah humbugger who doesn’t believe in the spirit of Christmas until he is visited by three spirits—the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future—and finds salvation in their terrifying visions.
“A Christmas Carol” is Zemeckis’s third attempt at creating a film using motion capture—filming the actors and using their motions as a template to create a computer generated film—following “Polar Express” and “Beowulf.” “Polar Express” was meant to be a heart warming Christmas tale but exposed the problem with Zemeckis’s technique—dead CGI eyes. The weirdly lifeless animation was creepy, akin to a Christmas story performed by zombies. “Beowulf” was an improvement but like “A Christmas Carol” there are still kinks to be worked out. Chief among them is: Why bother with this at all?
On the plus side the CGI allows for camera moves that would otherwise be impossible—endless dolly shots through a Dickensian cityscape for example—and the Ghost of Christmas Present death scene is a spectacular scene of gothic creepiness, and is actually enhanced by the use of computer animation. On the minus side the Ghost of Christmas Future, a stand-out in the 1951 Alastair Sim version, is reduced to a show-offy platform for Zemeckis’s 3-D CGI magic.
My main complaint though, is the medium itself. Much of the animation looks great—the texture of Scrooge’s leather chair for instance—but there are enough artificial looking things—the flame in the fireplace or the steam from people’s mouths—that remind us that we’re watching flashing binary code and little else. Some of the characters are well animated but the work is inconsistent, occasionally looking photo realistic, but often not. Unlike live action or even hand drawn animation, there’s nothing that feels organic about motion capture, so the moments that are supposed to strike an emotional chord—like young Ebenezer dancing with his beautiful bride to be, or old Scrooge watching Bob Cratchit’s family deal with the loss of Tiny Tim—have little resonance.
Whatever impact the movie has, and it does have the occasional moment that engages not only the eye but the heart, could have just as easily achieved with a live action cast.
Perhaps Zemeckis should have taken the lead from one of the more famous lines from the story, “Mankind was my business,” and made the movie’s business more about mankind and less about technology.
