“Magicians” is a British comedy starring Robert Webb and David Mitchell both of which worked together on multiple programmes such as “That Mitchell and Webb Look” and I have to say both have shown good comedic skills both together and solo but their ‘big’ movie “Magicians” is awful.

In “Magicians”, two rival magicians, named Harry (Mitchell) and Karl (Webb), who used to be partners until a fatal incident on stage occurred, are going head-to-head in a magic competition. I love comedy and I love magic, how did this movie screw things up? I don’t know but it starts off badly and just seems to get worse and worse as it goes along.

As I’ve said, I like David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s other work. They have two very different personalities that go together well as Mitchell is the snobby and sophisticated one while Webb is the more casual and sort-of depressed-sounding one but here you can’t tell that. The other characters are appalling, the only one who seems decent was the one played by Peter Capaldi (“In The Loop”) as his overwhelming anger can always put a smile on my face; it’s a shame he only appears in a few scenes.

“Magicians” manages to miss just about every single note. I get that tv comedians are eager to break into the mainstream and across the world by starring in movies but they’re never going to get into the foreign markets when they offer horrendous pieces like this. You may remember Rowan Atkinson conquered the entire world’s media market with tv’s “Mr. Bean”, was he as successful with his ‘big’ movies? No. “Magicians” might have been funnier if Mitchell and Webb had been given a camera and told to do whatever with it rather than forcing them to be in any way related to this hideous script that has about as much humour in it as war propaganda.