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MOVIE REVIEW
Bruce Almighty
(2003)
Starring:
Jim Carrey,
Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston
Director:
Tom Shadyac
Rating: PG-13
Studio:
Universal
Release Date: 5.23.03
Review
Posted: 5.27.03
Spoilers:
Minor
By
Sara Michelle Fetters
"Almighty
Carrey
Earns the Laughs, Not the Love"
It took me a
while to warm up to the talents of Jim Carrey. His breakthrough
roles in Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber and The
Mask left me more than a little cold. Granted, the first two
films are light years away from the type of comedy I enjoy,
while The Mask was nothing more than a cute idea
stretched far too long. Still, I always thought there was the
chance Carrey was more than his shtick, a potentially wonderful
actor hiding behind the painfully unfunny façade of a talking
ass.
Peter Weir’s
The Truman Show and Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon
more than proved that to be the case. Robbed of Academy Award
nominations – and probably the Oscar itself for his uncanny
portrayal of Andy Kaufman in the latter – for both films he
tried one more time for the little gold guy with the truly awful
Capra-esque stinker The Majestic. Both a critical and
commercial failure, the news started circulating that Carrey’s
career as the premier funnyman in Hollywood was over, audience’s
unhappy to see him trying to be taken seriously.
Now Carrey does
his best to prove those naysayers wrong. On the surface a return
to the baboon-like comedy he was once revered for by audiences,
the new film Bruce Almighty attempts to go much deeper
than that, discussing ideas like free will, higher power and
divine intervention. And while it is undeniable funny much of
the way through, it’s also terribly obvious and heavy-handed,
director Tom Shadyac (Dragonfly, Liar Liar)
showing all the subtlety behind the camera of Godzilla stomping
through Tokyo.
Buffalo
television reporter Bruce Nolan (Carrey) feels like God is out
to get him. Stuck with stories revolving around giant baked
goods and other frivolity that passes for “news,” he’s
infuriated when passed over for his network’s anchor position.
After a live expletive-filled breakdown on the evening newscast,
he’s fired from his job. Topping it off, Bruce than gets beaten
up by a group of thugs, crashes his car, has a fight with his
girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) and gets drenched by a
sudden torrential rainstorm.
God hates him,
Bruce is sure of it. In fact, he’s so positive the almighty is
out to get him, he taunts the big guy to just get on with it and
smite him to dust, cursing his name for not caring enough about
him and his problems. But after answering a strange,
never-ending call upon his beeper, Bruce discovers God isn’t
amused by his lack of faith, coming face-to-face with the big
guy himself (Morgan Freeman).
After
convincing the unbelieving reporter he actually is the almighty,
God decides to prove that being omnipotent isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be endowing him with all of his powers. Soon,
Bruce is living the high life. He’s able to part his tomato soup
like it’s the red sea, can make a monkey fly out of the butt of
one of his former attackers and can tease Grace just to the cusp
of orgasm a full room away. Even better, he can unearth Jimmy
Hoffa’s body and manufacture a meteor strike to regain his old
job and get a new shot at the anchor position, even going so far
as to make rival Evan Baxter (Steven Carell) look like a boob
on-air.
Bruce is
starting to get everything he’s thought he ever wanted, but this
new found material bounty isn’t winning him any admiration from
God. The deity points out that all Bruce has really done was
show off a little for his own gain, not exactly listening to the
growing stockpile of prayers being sent his way by the Buffalo
populace. Even more, he’s losing the love of his girlfriend,
Grace starting to feel Bruce is more concerned with his own
selfish needs than he is making their potential union something
special.
It’s an
interesting premise, too be sure, and Carrey is in fine comedic
form much of the way through. The early scenes, especially,
where Bruce is first starting to realize he actually does have
the power of God are quite amusing. Carrey saunters and struts
through the sequence with a cocksure bravado he hasn’t displayed
in ages.
Yet, as good as
he is, there is the growing feeling I’ve seen it all before.
This is the same character Carrey has played countless times,
from Liar Liar to Batman Forever with a bit of
The Truman Show and (shudder) The Majestic thrown in.
It is as if he is going through the motions, knowing the sillier
and more over the top he is, the more people will come and see
the movie, making it a huge hit and putting him once more at the
top of the Hollywood comedic pecking order.
And he’s right;
people will see Bruce Almighty in droves. The trailer
featuring a bathroom-trained dog (which, in all honesty, is a
very good sight gag) guarantees that. If only the film warranted
such a large audience. It’s far too long, stretching out its one
joke premise to the breaking point and builds to a conclusion so
knee-deep in treacle and posh sentimentality that even Carrey’s
winsome smile can’t save it.
Not helping
matters is the script’s total disregard for its female
characters. Aniston is fast proving herself to be one of the
more surprisingly good actresses around these days, turning in a
startlingly brazen performance in last year’s The Good Girl.
She’s wasted here, though, Grace nothing more than the stock
female sidekick pining away for her lover to realize how well he
has it. Sure, she has a few winning moments of stirring
earnestness, but overall she’s reduced to nothing more than
teary indignity.
That’s better
than Catherine Bell, however. Playing co-anchor Susan Ortega,
the JAG actress is a caricature of the newsroom slut,
jumping all over Bruce the moment he has anything in the way of
seniority over her. It isn’t funny, and the beautiful Bell
deserves more from her first large-scale Hollywood production.
Yet, there are
two men who almost single-handedly make Bruce Almighty
more than it deserves to be. The first is the magnificent Morgan
Freeman. The veteran actor has played the President, the
Vice-President and now God himself, and why not? He brings
maturity and intelligence to nearly every film he’s ever
appeared in, and as God he’s the movie’s saving grace. It’s a
playful, fun, winking performance filled with charm and a
genuine warmth of spirit the rest of Bruce Almighty is
unfortunately missing, and every time he’s on screen the film
achieves a comedic poignancy it fails to ascend to whenever he’s
not around.
But the big
surprise is Carell. Known mainly for playing one of Julia-Louis
Dreyfus’ friends on the anemic sitcom Watching Ellie, the
young funnyman is a revelation here. As Baxter, he nearly steels
the picture from underneath the veteran cast, delivering the
film’s single funniest moment. I don’t want to ruin it; let’s
just say gibberish and insanity hasn’t been delivered this well
in ages leaving me and the rest of the audience so torn up in
stitches that I can’t imagine laughing harder ever again. While
that’s probably a stretch to say, calling Carell’s performance
comedic brilliance is not, Bruce Almighty needing far
more of him than it gets.
Don’t get
me wrong, this isn’t a total loss by any means. Carrey and
company do provide a decent enough good time most of the way
through. In fact, Shadyac stages some of the best sight gags
I’ve seen in ages; a torrential room-clearing maelstrom
featuring a soaked Bruce and a bone-dry God comes to mind, as
does their second meeting standing in the middle of an ocean;
and there are plenty of funny moments that earn brownie points.
It’s just too bad it all couldn’t come together into something
just a bit more interesting or endearing. Bruce Almighty
has the laughs, but I just wish its heart were a little better
mapped out.
Rating: 2.5 out of 4 |
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