The SmarK DVD Rant for Bruce Almighty
Ah, Jim Carrey. No matter how badly his attempts at drama do at the box office (The Majestic, I’m looking at YOU), all he needs is one comedy hit to revive himself and guarantee another $20 million payday the next time out. You have to admire that kind of genius, even if you don’t like his movies.
However, financial genius aside, you have to wonder if Jim is starting to fall into an Adam Sandler-ish deathtrap of playing the same character over and over within similar scripts. Certainly having Tom Shadyac direct three of his movies shows him falling into something of a creative rut, in my opinion. At least his dramas have been wildly different and original for the most part. This one is certainly original, but could have been so much more.
The Film
Imagine this pitch to a movie studio: A movie about a lowly TV reporter who gets the powers of God, starring Jim Carrey. The jokes and script should write themselves! But they DIDN’T, and that’s what was so perplexing about this movie. What should have been an easy Jim Carrey home-run comedy (although it made $250 million, so in one sense it was) ended up being less than the sum of its parts because writer Steve Oedekerk decided to make a love story instead of focusing on Jim being all wacky.
See, I was kind of torn on this one, because I laughed REALLY hard for the most part, but I didn’t really like the movie overall. The problem, I think, is the split personality of the script — it varies between maudlin Jimmy Stewart wannabe drama and crazy sacrilegious dark comedy. Had they gone balls-out and decided to offend the entire Christian right-wing and been done with it, it would have been a better movie but made a lot less money, so I can’t say as I fault them financially for not going that route. But there’s just such flashes of greatness in this movie that never get completely fulfilled.
Jim Carrey plays Bruce, a wacky human-interest reporter who wants to be the new anchor for the local station in Buffalo, but he feels like he’s being held down by his asshole coworker Evan. He starts feeling sorry for himself and acting extraordinarily self-centered (which is hammered home by a homeless guy who uses cardboard signs to give morality lessons), until an on-air meltdown leads to him getting fired and blaming all his troubles on God. So God answers, leading him to a warehouse and offering him his powers to use as he sees fit. And really, who could play the Almighty better than Morgan Freeman? Bruce of course immediately sets about selfishly changing his own life for the better and ignoring the rest of the world, but his goofy attempts to romance his girlfriend end up having bigger global effects, and THAT’S where the movie should have gone for the jugular, rather than trying to pursue the course it did. Instead, Bruce continues acting like a self-centered weenie and loses his girlfriend (the subtly-named Grace) despite gaining his coveted anchor position (through an unbelievably funny sequence that you’ve probably seen in the trailer, involving the brilliant improv of Steven Carell). And from there he gets all sulky and cries a lot and tries to win back his girlfriend. Of course, since he’s the Jimmy Stewart of the new millennium, he realizes the error of his ways and she comes back to him and he realizes that he should just let God run things after all.
But man, the wasted potential of this movie is enormous. From using a computer to answer prayers to lassoing the moon (which in turn causes tidal waves in Japan) there’s just tons of funny ideas that exist only as either one-note jokes or heavy-handed reminders about not playing God. Tom Shadyac is a director who admits to always wanting a faster-paced movie and cutting more stuff out, but this is a case where a more leisurely pace and bigger exploration of the rather huge philosophical questions posed by a guy becoming God for a week would be appreciated. As well, Bruce’s character is constantly toeing the line between mildly selfish and oblivious dipshit, and it’s hard to be completely cheering him on when he’s torturing Evan out of spite, despite never having even gone live himself. I mean, did the guy really expect to make anchor after doing giant cookie stories? Also, the formulaic boy-loses-girl, boy-changes, boy-gets-girl-back love story grafted on here felt even more heavy-handed than the spiritual main story and I really wish Hollywood wouldn’t turn a fascinating premise into a simple love story because they’re afraid of losing a few bucks.
All that aside, when Bruce is Almighty, the movie is hysterically, milk-coming-out-of-your-nose funny, probably the most purely funny movie of the year in fact. That fact alone warrants a recommendation if you haven’t seen it, but if you HAVE, the story doesn’t hold up on a second viewing and it’s certainly no “It’s a Wonderful Life”, despite how it desperately throws allusions to the movie at the viewer.
It has been said of the movie that it’s an allegory for Carrey’s career — at one point, God tells Bruce that he’s a funny guy and should just be funny because people like that, and that could apply to Carrey himself and his penchant for doing strange dramatic roles like “The Truman Show” and “The Majestic”. I strongly disagree, because I think Jim is a fabulous dramatic actor as well, especially in “Truman”, which was eerily prescient of the reality show craze. My feeling is that he needs to make up his mind, and either be obnoxious and over-the-top funny like in half of “Bruce Almighty”, or sweet and maudlin, like in the other half.
The Video
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, it’s a nice transfer, but I found it to be a bit soft and hazy, although that might have been intentional given the theme of the movie. All the white in God’s office and suit looks awesome, however, and it’s otherwise a perfectly serviceable video quality for a comedy.
The Audio
Available in DTS or Dolby Digital, they both sound pretty much the same in this case, and really having a DTS track on a comedy is kind of a waste. Things move nicely into the surrounds when Bruce is up on the tower with lightning striking behind him, but for the most part this is a center channel movie.
The Extras
Most of what’s here focuses on outtakes. You get
– A commentary from director Tom Shadyac, as he discusses working with Jim, points at which scenes were deleted and why, and the progression of the script. A very lively and entertaining track.
– A 5 minute featurette on working with Jim Carrey, which is just an excuse to show alternate takes of stuff.
– Another 5 minutes of outtakes.
– 30 minutes of deleted scenes, and in a rare treat, they’re all really good and would have added a lot to the movie had Shadyac not cut them out for time. The skydiving scene in particular was hilarious and such a funny concept that I’m sad it wasn’t finished and added to the movie.
– A commercial for Mastercard. Oooo, what a bonus feature!
– The trailer and the usual cast & crew listings.
A little light on the extras, as there were some really cool CGI and special effects scenes that probably would have warranted at least a featurette, but I guess “leave em wanting more” IS the credo of any good showman, and I was left wanting more.
The Ratings
The Film: ***1/2
The Video: ***1/2
The Audio: ***
The Extras: **1/2
