"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
Subscribe To Weekly Newsletter!

BRUCE ALMIGHTY
by Peter Sobczynski

May 23, 2003

1/2 (Out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Steve Koren, Mark O’Keefe & Steve Oedekerk. Directed by Tom Shadyac. Starring Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston and Morgan Freeman. PG-13.

If Bill Bennett ever sat down to write a spec script in order to pay off his crippling gambling debts, "Bruce Almighty" is the kind of thing that he might come up with. A weirdly unpleasant faith-based slapstick comedy, it starts off with an undeniably promising premise-showing what might happen if God granted all of his powers to an ordinary schnook-and ends with a series of gloppy scenes that exhort us to Believe in God, Believe in Ourselves and Believe in Jim Carrey after his recent, unsuccessful forays into Serious Acting. The result plays as if the first half were made for Bart Simpson and the second half for Ned Flanders. Of course, Bart would have come up with better ways to use the power of God and even Ned might have found the last half drippy and smarmy.

Carrey, in his first whack at full-on comedy since "Me, Myself and Irene", stars as Bruce Nolan, a reporter for a Buffalo TV station who gets stuck doing all the "human interest" stories (such as one where a local bakery attempts to make the largest cookie ever baked in the city). Although his wacky approach is perfectly suited for such stories, he endlessly complains to everyone, including long-suffering girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) that he is being unfairly dismissed by his bosses and yearns to be made an anchorman. When he is officially passed over for the promotion-the culmination of one exceptionally bad day-he suddenly decides that God is deliberately ignoring and causing all of his problems. Finally, God (Morgan Freeman-a choice that is either an example of casting against type or typecasting, depending on your point-of-view) get sick of Bruce’s whining (as has much of the audience by this point), summons him in and says, in essence, "I suppose you can do better."

God grants Bruce his powers over all those in the greater Buffalo area and blithely wanders off on vacation. At first, Bruce decides to use his powers to pull silly pranks (blowing some babe’s skirt up) and exact petty revenge on his tormentors; he forces the new anchor to speak entirely in gibberish and has a monkey not only emerge from the hind-quarters of a bully but has him return home as well. Bruce even uses his powers to strike sparks with Grace; he secretly enhances her bust and, inspired by "It’s a Wonderful Life", literally drags the moon up to his window to create the perfect romantic mood.

Of course, such a stunt with the moon would, in reality, affect the tides in such a way that all life on Earth would probably be destroyed but here, all it does is cause a tidal wave that leave some people in Japan homeless. Not that Bruce notices; he is so consumed with satisfying himself that when it comes time to actually answer prayers, he merely issues a blanket "Yes" to every request. The results are swell on the surface but quickly grow disastrous; everyone wins the lottery, so the payout is only about $17; everyone strikes it big playing the stock market and economic chaos reigns; the Sabres win the Stanley Cup and the celebration quickly turns into a violent riot. (Of course, one of these developments is utterly preposterous and unbelievable-there aren’t enough people who actually care about pro hockey to create a minor skirmish, let alone a full-on riot). Inevitably, Bruce learns the error of his ways , learns to be a better man and God eventually tells us that while we should still pray, we also need to look within ourselves as well. (Apparently God watched a lot of Oprah while on vacation.)

The first time that Jim Carrey and director Tom Shadyac teamed up, they launched their careers with the fluke smash "Ace Ventura". Years later, after Carrey’s brave turn in the criminally underrated "The Cable Guy" (arguably the single best film of his career) struck out with viewers, he reteamed with Shadyac for the utterly formulaic high-concept hit "Liar Liar". Now, with Carrey having been absent from movie screens since the unforgivably awful and sanctimonious "The Majestic" (the film that bravely suggest that small-town America was good and the McCarthy hearings were bad and only took 752 hours to do so) and Shadyac (who went on to make the unspeakable "Patch Adams") trying to rebound from the equally dreadful Kevin Costner vehicle "Dragonfly" (which is slightly better than "The Majestic" only because it is 379 hours shorter), it isn’t surprising that the two would team up again for a rambunctious comedy and in their hands, a film like "Bruce Almighty" sounds good in theory. Besides, the idea of Jim Carrey playing God almost makes sense in the wake of watching Keanu Reeves essentially playing Jesus in "The Matrix Reloaded"; what’s next, Cher as Methuselah?

In practice, though, it is pretty much a botch. The wacky scenes are simply not very funny; anyone sitting in the audience could think of far better things to do with the powers of God than the film does (I, for one, would magically transform the generally unbearable and off-putting Jennifer Aniston-playing the kind of doormat girlfriend role that is beneath even her-into Audrey Tautou for starters). And yet, even though those scenes are less than inspired (and the best gags-such as Bruce parting the Tomato Soup-have already been given away in the commercials), they are better than the icky sentiment that permeates the second half of the film. Perhaps fearful of the reception that accompanied other films that attempted to fuse edgy humor with genuine thoughts and feelings about the nature of God (such as "Life of Brian" and "Dogma"), "Bruce Almighty" chooses to lay its "God is great" message with all of the subtlety of an especially ham-fisted Sunday-school teacher.

There are a few funny moments here and there in "Bruce Almighty" (the dialogue inspired by God informing Bruce that his powers cannot interfere with someone’s free will is the funniest bit of applied logic I’ve seen since the amnesiac lesbian in "Mulholland Drive" was asked if she had ever done anything like that before) but they never add up to anything much and after a while, the whole thing grows pretty tiresome. And even though Morgan Freeman seems to be game for anything here (at one point, even he breaks into an Ace Ventura imitation in a seemingly unplanned moment), the filmmakers have forgotten to give God anything particularly interesting to say or do. By the end of the film, when Bruce finally learns to straighten up and go with God, all that God can say in the way of inspiration is to suggest that Bruce look within and "Be the Miracle." I wonder if he said the same thing to the poor schmucks in Japan hit by the tidal wave inadvertently caused in His name.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
Peter's Archives

While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.