BRUCE ALMIGHTY

Release Date: May 23, 2003
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Tom Shadyac
Screenwriter: Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe, Steve Oedekerk
Starring: Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Bell, Steve Carell, Nora Dunn, Philip Baker Hall, Sally Kirkland, Lisa Ann Walter, Lillian Adams, Tony Bennett (cameo as himself), Robert Curtis-Brown, Christopher Darga, Dan Desmond, Lou Felder, Eddie Jemison, Jack Jozefson, Mark Kiely, Madeline Lovejoy, Adrien Neil, Bette Rae, Darius Rose, Paul Satterfield, Selma Stern, Miah Won
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG 13 (for language, sexual content and some crude humor)
Official Website: BruceAlmighty.com
Production Stills: View images

Review By John Barker
- Take a pot shot but be warned.

Another zany comedy from the director of Liar Liar and The Nutty Professor doesn’t sound like a bad thing and although a scene in this film takes place on the peaks of Everest this Carrey caper can only mount the foothills of the Himalayas in terms of laughability.

The story is simplicity itself borrowing a small amount of narrative juice from the earlier Liar Liar with a supernaturally driven force behind the films events. In the film Jim Carrey plays a down on his luck local news reporter, Bruce Nolan, who aims for the big time but falls short because of his wacky sense of humour. After a series of life altering events take place Carrey confronts his maker who he believes is treating him unfairly and surprisingly the Almighty responds. But instead of punishing Bruce for his inflammatory remarks God, (played quite rightly by Morgan Freeman), challenges Bruce to become God for a time. This leads to all kinds of indulgent behaviour with the new God raining down his fury to right the wrongs in his own life at the cost of others. Of course this selfish behaviour alienates Bruce’s wife, (played by the beautiful Jennifer Aniston), and the films moralistic conclusion leads to the inevitable resolution of this relational crisis.

The performances see both Carrey and Aniston on auto-pilot both recycling roles from Liar Liar and Friends, although Aniston has more to do dramatically than the average episode of the long running shit-com or should I say sit-com. Morgan Freeman is the right man for the role of God but is really wasted on material like this and I can only hope he sees sense a returns to the kind of challenging roles of earlier films like Unforgiven and Seven. Character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman also appears as a TV executive but is really given nothing to work with and his role could have been filled by a lesser actor.

Still with all this said the comedy does hit the G-spot from time to time with Carrey giving a brilliantly funny interview at Niagara Falls where he slips into another gear and insults all of his quests before signing out saying "Goodbye fuckers". His shenanigans with the powers of God also amuse as he parts a bowl of tomato soup much like Moses’ parting of the red sea. But the film lags in the last half hour as the emotional schmaltz is lavished upon the story and I almost found myself drowned in the kind of sentimental pap that populates so much of our cinema-going these days.

The film however seems to have a more culturally driven strand to its narrative as at several points Nolan actually addresses the camera and in turn the audience which draws attention to the fact that we are watching a film, that we are consuming media. This is quite a brave move but certainly taps into our more advanced media literate society. This idea is taken further when we see the outtakes from Nolan’s news reports where he sarcastically deconstructs the immature nature of his reports. This can be read as a meta-commentary on how we as spectators are manipulated by the views and opinions of others further up the media hierarchy and is only really understandable thanks to the DVD-culture of outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage.

Beyond all of these wider implications the film is Carrey’s best in terms of comedy since the Liar Liar and deserved to be a hit in the States where it has topped the $100 million mark, although I do feel the trailer spoilt some of the best parts of the film for viewers.