The empty theatricality of Oz the Great and Powerful easily beat the empty-but-honest-about-it theatricality of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone at the domestic box office this week.

In its second week of release, Sam Raimi’s disappointing prequel to The Wizard of Oz  held on to the top spot with $42.2 million while Steve Carell and Jim Carrey’s comedy about duelling Vegas magicians opened in third with $10.3 million. Second place went to the disposable Halle Berry thriller The Call, which made $17.1 million and demonstrated that people will pay to see what’s essentially a feature-length episode of Criminal Minds. 

Damn it people, we can’t have nice things, this is why film critics cry themselves to sleep so often, and so forth. You know the drill.