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Bruce Almighty (Full Screen Edition) Customer Reviews (52 - 54 of 76 Reviews)

B-E-A-UTIFUL
In the gentle comedy "Bruce Almighty", Jim Carrey plays Bruce Nolan, a fluff-reporter who longs to become anchorman. When he is passed over for a promotion, Bruce curses God to his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), insisting that God's rule of the world is not satisfactory and that he could do a much better job of running the world himself. What he is not expecting, however, is for God (Morgan Freeman) to appear and give him this very responsibility and privilege.
The film is predictable but successful in its portrayal of what the world would be like if a human being, and a disgruntled one at that, was given the task of ruling the world. Jim Carrey achieves most of his laughs through his slapstick humor and characteristic goofiness. Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston adequately plays her part as the devoted, do-gooder girlfriend who stands beside Bruce in supporting his career ambitions even when he is too wrapped up in himself to realize she is yearning for him to propose. The deadpan, cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor of Morgan Freeman's God is well-matched with Bruce's playful humor.
Perhaps the film suffers most when it oversteps its boundaries in terms of making a statement about morality. Rather than simply portraying Bruce as selfish and acknowledging that no person is fit for the task of "playing God", the film throws in a contrast between Bruce and Grace. According to Grace's best friend, every night before she goes to bed, Grace kneels down and prays. She also works in a day-care center and donates blood to blood-drives.
Aside from this cheesiness, "Bruce Almighty" works in the sense that it is an amusing film filled with light-hearted laughs that ponders the age-old question of what would happen if a mere mortal was ever made to fill the shoes of the Alpha and Omega. The best time to watch this flick is if you are in need of a fluffy comedy to calm you down or relax your nerves. Otherwise, the Hollywood sappiness of religious controversy may bother you.

High concept, well-played
Not really being a big Jim Carrey fan (his performance in The Truman Show aside), I wasn't really relishing watching another one of his clownish performances. However, the twist here is that the concept behind this is so good that you wonder why it hasn't been done before. Carrey plays Bruce, a put-upon news reporter who doesn't get the anchor position he'd coveted and defies God to make his life any worse than it already is. Enter Morgan Freeman as God, handing over the reigns to Bruce while he takes a well-earned vacation.

The first half of this movie is the most fun, with Bruce parting his tomato soup, creating the perfect romantic evening with girlfriend Grace (Aniston) and facing off with a group of thugs. Carrey's rubber-faced antics work very well in these scenes and there are some very good jokes along the way - God's last break was apparently the Dark Ages. Unfortunately it all unravels a bit when the inevitable occurs and Bruce realises that being God isn't as easy as it might first appear. Unfortunately, rather than discussing more pertinent issues, the only result of Bruce answering 'yes' to all his incoming prayers is a lottery debacle and a power cut. Strangely enough, a tsunami he caused by lassoing the moon and bringing it to his balcony, is only giving a fleeting reference. This is all coupled with a hokey resolution where Bruce realises the humility in small deeds and, literally, that all you need is love. This attempted 'serious' ending not only tries to spoon-feed its audience with simplistic morals, but really lets down the first half of the movie, which really is very funny. You can't help but feel that the movie should've gone all out simply for fun, or attempted to discuss the wider repurcussions of Bruce's actions as God. But I guess that might not have packed them into the multiplexes as much as this.

Still, the movie (clearly Carrey's longed-for middle ground between the critical acclaim he received for Man In The Moon and the audience-friendly Ace Ventura) did well at the box office and is very funny a lot of the time. Even so, compare this to other blockbusters of last year - Pirates Of The Caribbean, Finding Nemo, Lord Of The Rings - and there's a very big gap. Not a failure perhaps, but a brilliant concept a little bit wasted.

An EVIL movie
Let me get this straight, Morgan Freeman is God in this movie. Morgan Freeman was on Electric Company on PBS. PBS is the same station that produces Sesame Street. Sesame Street has the devil himself "Elmo". Elmo and the devil are both red, walk funny, and are pure evil. By this process we can prove this movie is about the devil.

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