God has an anomalous sense of humor. Review on Bruce Almighty Movie

Manning its moral lighthouses with a creepy homeless man, mannequin-esque and complete with doomsday signs in hand (who later turns out to be something else, ironically, in the way of a Deus ex Machina, and just Deus), there’s little discovery of man’s possibilities with god-like powers abandoned for bad motifs like our homeless friend back there and raunchiness just below teen sex romp. Tom Shadyac’s Bruce Almighty undulates at a hopelessly schizophrenic pace, weaving lopsided comedic relief around insipid romantic melodrama. It’s the kind of Jim Carrey vehicle traditionally inspired by the magical horse slop and schmaltzy dramatic vacuity we all thought, and hoped, he had surpassed. And it’s quite a shame because I often find Carrey’s humor rather enjoyable, but here the rubber face antics are peculiarly emaciated and replaced with a forced over-zealous performance. In fact, the sentimental badinage between Carrey and Jennifer Aniston adorns the film so much a Hallmark card that the script conjures awkward “shits” and “fucks” from a usually (yet still curiously) clean-mouthed Carrey to compensate.

Carrey plays himself (only called Bruce Nolan here), an impulsive man prone to bursts of wiry comedic outrage, employed as a roving news reporter in Buffalo, NY, whose primary tasks consist of covering giant cookie stories. He lives with Rachel from Friends (Aniston) who calls herself Grace because the film is partially steeped in popular Christian mythology and such a name goes hand in hand with the abundances of “sevens” and ceiling light motifs (though I’ve yet to understand the religious significance of “Bruce”). Passed over for promotion when an anchor spot becomes available, Bruce goes through one angry day of feeling God’s wrath, also conveniently filled with TV Lot-loitering gang-bangers, damage to his car and a freely p*ssing dog, and feverishly announces his contempt for the Big Guy Upstairs. God (Morgan Freeman) then beeps Bruce’s pager, invites the beleaguered man to his building, and bestows Bruce with all of his divine abilities. Needless to say the power gets a bit abused, Grace is soon betrayed by Bruce, and the gift becomes more a curse than an advantage.

In a religious comedy that promotes God in the dominate Jewish-Christian American fashion, including the fact that it employs Freeman’s blackness to act as the obligatory PC compliment (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but here it feels too obvious), it’s interesting that Bruce Almighty never really confirms Bruce’s religion, if he had one at all (or if any of the characters’ had religious affiliations for that matter). It seems to assume the entire audiences accept the idea of the typically Jewish-Christian God. Not only does the biased religious premise distance the film from a good portion of the world Bruce Almighty fabricates notions so wholly ridiculous and near offensive (prayer e-mails?) that it rapidly descends its vapid material into exploitative territory. Scattershot and scatological in its ideas of morality and redemption, the film attempts to disguise any irresponsibility with the nescient script’s (co-scribbled by unfunny man Steve Oedekerk) propensity for dramatic fraud and its unpalatable themes of religious redemption. However, any and all of its religious references (including all of the popular theological and iconographical allusions) quickly merge with piss jokes, orgasm jokes, and everything short of talking as jokes…oh wait, there is an as monkey in lieu. It’s not that the images or its religious mockery is offensive but its shameless juxtapositions of absurd morality and woefully anomalous dramedy against its ribald assumptions of religious preference reveals the film as utter disarray.

As delighted as some may be about the return to form Carrey has assumed here in this quite Liar Liar/The Mask/Ace Ventura-esque jaunt it’s mostly dispiriting to see the lissome comic temporarily desert his dramatic talents for such unfunny hogwash that makes gross misuse of his dramatic qualities. Principally, it drags through power trip gag after gag with little development and even less pay-off, and all before the third act suicide. However, the film finds its most comedic scene when Carrey manipulates Steve Carell’s news delivery and turns it into wagging blubbery. There are other laughs as well, sporadically sprinkled throughout the film but they’re ever remote and impermanent, the kind that this same material produced before with slightly better results in Carrey’s previous facsimile performances of this ilk. So arbitrarily designed that it recycles elements from other Carrey films in an unsuccessful stunt akin to Die Another Day’s subtle self-parody and reference. Produced strictly for the emolument of its creators, the film butters its limited appeal with a maudlin score as hackneyed as the overused vanilla syrup secreting from Liar Liar’s raped entity.

The novelty of seeing divine thaumaturgy in the hands of a mortal man wears off as quickly as the plot’s coherence and purpose avoids the vast potential of the notion. Ultimately we’re left asking why God would grant such a man these immense powers, as well as questioning God’s faith in humanity if he (?) so irrationally feels the need to intervene with individuals when relatively trivial events cause them to have just one bad day. But not to confuse any actual God with the film’s God, these are really just the faults of the half-baked premise I suppose. When such a controversial platform for humor as religious tangibility and intervention is initiated it generally should create some unique follow through, or at least exude more knowledge on its material than expected, like Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Bruce Almighty doesn’t, and so for all its exiguity, ludicrousness and hopelessness the film is powerfully disappointing and more or less pathetic. But hopefully we need not lose faith in Mr. Carrey just yet, let’s wait until his next.