Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Carrey's comic touch is the only good 'Almighty' trait
Morgan Freeman's God guides Jim Carrey in 'Bruce Almighty'
Universal Pictures
Director: Tom Shadyac.
Stars: Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston.
MPAA rating: PG-13, for language, sexual content and some crude humor.
It will sell because the writer and directors of Jim Carrey's two "Ace Ventura" films restore him to the sort of crude juvenile behavior that catapulted him to box-office stature.
At least Carrey looks and moves funny, which gives him an edge over almost everyone else starring regularly in film comedies today.
He's watchable even in substandard material because he can contort his face and wrap his mouth around an insult with savory vigor. There's something insidiously compelling about his characters' rage.
The notion of him as a television field reporter, being sarcastic with the subjects of novelty features and covetous of a job as anchor, seems funny.
But "Bruce Almighty" is the sort of comedy that belabors running gags about nose picking and an untrained dog with a humongous bladder. How many times in how many movies can that be funny?
It's also the sort of picture that introduces Tony Bennett singing "If I Ruled the World" and then cuts away impatiently lest a photo op for a urinating dog be missed.
And then it has the effrontery to cross-reference itself with a clip from "It's a Wonderful Life."
As written by Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe, both new to movies, and Steve Oedekerk ("Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius," "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist") and directed by Tom Shadyac ("Patch Adams," the "Nutty Professor" movies), "Bruce Almighty" presents Carrey as TV reporter Bruce Nolan, who cohabitates with day care worker Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston).
Jealous about a promotion for smarmy rival Evan Baxter (Steven Carell), Bruce explodes during a live feed with vulgarity and possibly libelous invective.
At home, he rants about his "mediocre job, mediocre apartment and mediocre life," although no one in the audience perusing his lifestyle will have any idea what he's whining about.
God, personified by Morgan Freeman (doing one for the checkbook), confronts him and offers him HIS job for several days, with limitless powers. Bruce may engage in revenge on Evan (giving Carell the film's funniest bit) and may scoop the world by finding Jimmy Hoffa's body and anticipating a meteor's landing. Oh, and swipe the job of his dreams - anchoring the Buffalo, N.Y., TV news.
But "Bruce Almighty" already is in way over its bladder.
"Oh, God!" used endearingly the idea of God (George Burns) as a catalyst in a comedy-fantasy about a man seeking an epiphany. If any actor alive can inherit such a part, it's Freeman.
But the device and its demonic use are Faustian in nature, and the juvenile treatment would insult a genie from "Arabian Nights."
The station puts Bruce back on the air 24 hours after a tirade that would have horrified the FCC (this is no cable station) and won national attention.
I don't think so.
Bruce/God, besieged my millions of prayers, delivers a one-size-fits-all answer: "Yes!" the result of which runs no deeper than thousands of Buffalo-area residents winning the lottery. (If you think about any part of that, your brain will ache.)
The real God steps in and explains that many prayers are not answered because people don't know what they want, at which point the answering of prayers is cut off without a peep about illness, suffering or addiction.
The difficulty of being God, or what passes for it when Bruce is filling in, is reduced to a very belated consideration that many people might be addressing him concurrently, leading to aural chaos when he's in a restaurant dining. (It began only then?)
And that's before "Bruce Almighty" gets lachrymose and pumps in phony piety. "Be the miracle," it says en route to another doggie discharge.
Yeah, well ...
Lastly, the picture does something inexplicable that several other comedies have done. Instead of beginning outtakes immediately, while people are seated, it waits about 30 seconds as ordinary printed credits crawl up the screen.
Then, when three-quarters of the audience have left their seats, walked along their rows and clogged the aisles or gotten caught crawling in front of seated patrons, the outtakes begin and everyone freezes, however awkwardly they're positioned.
Is this a party game -- See how far they get before we stop them? Why not start the outtakes immediately? And safely?
