Magic Camp (2020)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, August 21

PG Running Time: 100 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

As a movie, Magic Camp is largely harmless content-wise and young kids will probably enjoy it just fine.
I should add that it probably would work well enough as a family movie night option.
I would like to see Adam DeVine and Gillian Jacobs try again in a better movie. I think I kind of like their chemistry together.

NO

Can I please recommend a dozen other movies you can all watch together as a family? Maybe two dozen?
Really feels long at 100 minutes, when 75-80 minutes would accomplish much the same thing,
There’s likely a reason beyond Jeffrey Tambor’s controversies that Magic Camp sat for so long. This is not a good movie. And eight writers having input only compounds the film’s failures.

OUR REVIEW

Though the streaming wars are raging now, not every film debuting on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu are going to be winners. In fact, as theaters remain closed in many parts of North America because of the COVID-19 pandemic, films that were positioned to play theaters are landing either on these services for subscribers, or become available through video-on-demand for the price of a movie ticket.

With Magic Camp, now available on Disney+, we have what amounts to the House of Mouse taking an oft-delayed film off the shelf and salvaging what they can with a release on their service. Shot more than three years ago, Mark Waters’ film arrives with some baggage.

Co-star Jeffrey Tambor was a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor for his work on “Transparent,” when the film went into production. In the fall of 2017, some may remember Tambor willingly departing the show after allegations of sexual harassment and aggressive behavior with co-stars, and on set, came to light. Tambor seems to have not worked since, yet he has a prominent role here.

Additionally, Josie Totah appears here prior to her coming out as transgender. Totah’s name in the credits exists as J.J. Totah, the name she used professionally prior to her coming out. Playing Judd, this would all be fine I suppose, except Totah came out two full years ago.

And so yeah…this is all a little bit messy. Originally scheduled to open in 2018, Magic Camp was delayed at least twice on Disney’s release schedule, eventually pulled from the schedule altogether and set on a shelf. Now in August 2020, with Disney+ sharing new content weekly with subscribers, Magic Camp gets its moment to shine.

Another problem: Magic Camp is just not a good movie.

Starring Adam DeVine as Andy, a former magician now driving for Uber, and Gillian Jacobs as famous Vegas magician Katrina Lockwood; the two old friends find themselves brought together by Tambor’s Roy – the owner and facilitator of “The Institute of Magic.” Roy’s annual “magic camp” brings together teenage magicians from all over to spend a couple of weeks in a remote campground to learn magic, put together a talent show, and win the coveted Golden Wand at the end of the event.

Early on, the jokes fail to land. And the premise seems pulled together by a conglomerate of executive sitting in a Disney Channel board room. Stop me if you have heard of this before…

Precocious kids come together. Two adults bicker back and forth. Kids are shown to be misfits and struggle fitting in and/or relating to expectations placed on them by parents. They get into trouble. We have good kids and bad kids. They engage in wacky hijinks. Adults wrestle with damaged personal lives. And on and on.

Simple and pedestrian, predictable and uninteresting, Magic Camp finds eight (eight!?!) writers credited with developing all of this. Theo (Nathaniel McIntyre) is primarily who the youth story is told through the eyes of. Specializing in cardistry and sleight-of-hand tricks, his nerves get the best of him when people are around and he struggles to pull them off with ease.

We have a bully named Vic (Hayden Crawford), who has won The Golden Wand for two years running, rules the camp by fear and intimidation, and is hardly, if ever, disciplined for his obnoxious, out-in-the-open behavior. Theo catches the eye of Janelle (Bianca Santos), while Judd (Totah) struggles to live up to the expectations of his self-serving, cocky, world-famous magician father (Michael Hitchcock).

In and around the fleeting jabs of silly one-liners and comedic scenes, Magic Camp becomes a muddled mix of positive, inclusionary themes with a cumbersome frenemies subplot involving Andy and Katrina. Nothing is left to surprise and even when the film taps into some genuineness along the way, Waters never stays with these moments long enough to allow anything of meaning to resonate.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Adam DeVine, Jeffrey Tambor, Gillian Jacobs, Nathaniel McIntyre, Josie Totah, Cole Sand, Isabella Crovetti, Izabella Alvarez, Hayden Crawford, Bianca Grava, Aldis Hodge, Rochelle Aytes, Krystal Joy Brown, Desmond Chiam, Lonnie Chavis.

Director: Mark Waters
Written by: Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, Matt Spicer, Max Winkler, Dan Gregor, Doug Mand (screenplay); Gabe Sachs, Jeff Judah, Matt Spicer, Max Winkler (story).
Release Date: August 14, 2020
Disney+

As a movie, Magic Camp is largely harmless content-wise and young kids will probably enjoy it just fine.

I should add that it probably would work well enough as a family movie night option.

I would like to see Adam DeVine and Gillian Jacobs try again in a better movie. I think I kind of like their chemistry together.

Can I please recommend a dozen other movies you can all watch together as a family? Maybe two dozen?

Really feels long at 100 minutes, when 75-80 minutes would accomplish much the same thing,

There’s likely a reason beyond Jeffrey Tambor’s controversies that Magic Camp sat for so long. This is not a good movie. And eight writers having input only compounds the film’s failures.