Reviews

Despite the many talents of this cast, the script falls completely flat.

Even in what would normally be a crazy, outlandish comedy we should want to root for the leading character, but here they give us no one to root for.

Steve Carell's character (Burt Wonderstone) is revealed to us, early on, to be a selfish, rude, washed up, egotistical "has been" who only cares about himself and his own sexual needs.

As we see his career threatened by the "new kid in town" (Jim Carrey), we should be able to feel sorry for him, but we can't. He continues to think only of himself, even when his partner and best friend is painfully injured as a result of Carell's desperate fears during a performance.

I thought perhaps that would be the turning point in this dull story and that Carell's character would begin to have compassion for his partners, leading to redemption for his earlier flawed, selfish ways. But no, he continues to think only of himself.

The script completely overlooks the fact the Burt Wonderstone is so undeserving of any success over his rival.

Jim Carrey and Steve Buscemi are the only 2 who come close to making this film watchable and yet the script restricts all of that talent.

It seems a shame to have wasted all of these talented performers on such an inept movie. Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Olivia Wilde, Jim Carrey, James Gandolfini, Alan Arkin....an unbelievable cast stuck in a terrible script.

Some serious tweaking to the script could have really saved this film from the disaster that it is.

It's not even funny.

Fun movie to watch. Bradley Cooper does an outstanding job. There was plenty of action. I actually found myself wishing this pill really did exist in real life. Watching this film, I felt that the struggles that the lead character faced were well displayed, from his writer's block to his girlfriend to his complete vulnerability as he faces the mysteries of this new-found power that he stumbled across. It was good to see how not everything worked out the way he expected it to. The big Flaw in this movie is this: if he can outsmart every stock market analyst after just a few days of studying, why can't he, himself, study the pill and find a way to reproduce it? Why leave this to the amateurs who are using only 35 percent of their brain ? The same holds true for fending off the bad guys: he should be able to out smart them or at least buy a gun with a silencer. He knows they are after him. Every issue he attacks should have been studied by him as his brain is superior in learning capacity.