Magic Magic (2013) - Review

I had no idea what to make of this movie when I first watched it.  But... now that I’ve had a few months to think about it, I mostly think it’s just stupid.  In fact, replaying the movie in my head, I can’t for the life of me picture the director.  Like, whose pet project was this?  Who always wanted to be able to make Magic Magic?

In a classic case of the trailer completely playing you for a fool, I initially thought this would be a creepy thriller about an over-the-top Michael Cera stalking a scared girl.  I thought there would be some comedy value in Cera’s OTT performance, and that it would be maybe sort of like The Good Son.  Well... I was right about Michael Cera, at least partially.  The trailer lifts the greatest scenes of Cera being a weirdo and disregards all context for them, mostly because there is no context throughout the movie.  Cera is just weird because, hey why not, it’s Magic Magic!

I don't know what I could add that would make this better

Don’t think I’m bashing Cera – no, he’s by FAR the best thing about this movie.  So much so that I can’t even remember anything else of note, besides the ending.  I’m going to spoil this because you don’t care about this movie.  I know this because nobody cares about this movie.

The movie begins with a girl going to live with her cousin’s family on some island.  The whole film is supposed to be this girl being gradually more and more creeped out by the twisted family, but it just doesn’t work.  The family is weird and kind of awful, yeah, but not enough to make me care about the girl, who proves to be kind of awful herself.  Whatever.  To escape the family, she runs to a cliff (?) and then proceeds to fall off like an idiot and die.  The family retrieves her body and take her to a shaman (??) that performs some voodoo-esque ritual to bring her back to life.  It doesn’t work.  End credits.

There, I just saved you from having to watch Magic Magic.  Even if you’re thinking of watching this for Michael Cera (I mean did you seriously look at that picture and not immediately love it?), just watch This Is the End.  That’s a far better movie with an equally funny Cera performance.  Or, even better, just go watch Arrested Development again.