MOVIE CRITIQUE:
People have been flocking to see "Bruce Almighty" in the hopes of seeing the very popular Jim Carrey revert to his earlier comedic strengths after his starring roles in two serious movies, both flops at the box office. Most of them will probably leave the theater disappointed since the increasingly serious tone of this movie does not allow for Carrey to exhibit much of his occasionally crude and often manic, rubber bodied style of humor.

Surprisingly enough, the main reason to see this movie is not for Jim Carrey, but instead to see his two co-stars, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Aniston. They each give wonderfully understated performances playing the "straight man" to Carrey's hyper kinetic activity.

Morgan Freeman is an inspired choice and is just wonderful in his portrayal of a kindly and compassionate God who is very understanding of this very foolish mortal. He gives a nuanced and understated portrayal of a God who just happens to have a wry sense of humor at the absurdity of it all. Freeman is an absolute delight in this role.

Secondly, Jennifer Aniston gives a beautiful performance as Jim Carrey's long suffering, live in girlfriend in another strong acting performance that shows that she has the "chops" to make it as a serious actress with a talent far transcending that of her role on the television sitcom, "Friends."

She only wants him to care about her, but he only wants her to care about his career progress as a Buffalo television news reporter hoping to be the anchorman. She loves the knuckle head (well, who wouldn't?), but also is sane enough to wonder why she wants to live with this nut case, especially during these critical 24 hours when he seems to have extraordinary powers and an outsized ego to match.

"Bruce Almighty" has flashes of comedic brilliance, but then gets bogged down under the heaviness of its theological premise.

It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that when   someone is given temporary God-like powers, just how far could, or should, anyone expect this situation to go in a comedic environment?

There are really only three choices that movies can make when trying to portray a human with God-like, God-given powers. Unfortunately, none of these choices is very palatable and none of them offers strong comedic potential.

A movie could develop into a study of a character's descent into delusional madness, surely a trend that is more painful than funny and the reason why this choice naturally remains unpopular for cinematic subject matter, especially for that of a comedy.

A movie starring a character with God-like powers could be comedic if those powers are used in humorous ways, as is the case with this movie. However, the problem with this narrative tangent is that it runs the risk of the character eventually delving into selfish narcissism. This is part of the problem with this movie as Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) starts to "Feel the Power!"

Taking this choice means that the star eventually will become a thoroughly unlikeable person. After all, who can like a person who has this kind of an unfair advantage, who has such an edge over everyone else? Just examine what Bruce Nolan initially does in this movie. Sure, it's funny, but only at first glance as something that happens to "the other guy." Thereafter, it quickly becomes very sad and very unfunny, especially if you put yourself in the shoes of the people who are the object of Carrey's jokes. After all, how would YOU like to be the butt of these jokes?

Finally, a movie could turn serious and take a spiritual bent with the main character turning saint like, a la Mother Theresa. Bruce Nolan in "Bruce Almighty" also tries this tack with greater or lesser success. Unfortunately, this story line is neither comedic in style nor in tone and merely tries to establish the character as being something more than a selfish slug of humanity and as being someone who at least partially tries to redeem himself for his earlier selfish actions. All of this, of course, is an attempt to make himself somewhat worthy of having been given this temporary gift from God.

"Bruce Almighty" tries to take this philosophical bent while still remaining true to its comedic core. However, the blending of these two diametric and conflicting goals is not very successful. The more the movie tilts towards personality growth, the less funny it becomes. This is in no way an indictment of Nolan's growth as a person, otherwise a commendable goal in of itself; it is merely an observation that those who expect this movie to be filled with Carrey's typically crude yuk yuks will most likely not be very happy with "Bruce Almighty."
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
It is another day in Buffalo, and special events reporter Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is out to plum the depths of any human interest stories that may be used as filler by Buffalo's Channel 7 Eyewitness News. Today it is to be about a Polish family bakery with a mother and her son being interviewed. Unfortunately, the mother doesn't have much to say, while, worse yet, her son stands in the background picking his nose. All of this requires numerous re-takes to get it right and Nolan begins to lose his cool under the pressure.

That night at home with his long time, live in girlfriend, Grace (Get it? - "Grace") Connelly (Jennifer Aniston), Nolan shows much more interest in talking about his career prospects and his fervent hope to be promoted to anchorman than he does in helping Grace with her photo album, a shared activity which might show his being equally interested and committed to the two of them as a couple.

Bruce Nolan wakes up very excited the next morning as he feels that he is sure to be promoted to the post of anchorman at the local  Buffalo television station where he works. The current anchorman is retiring at the end of the week and Bruce's patience has long ago worn out for his having to work only on reporting human interest stories. He desperately wants to be the station's lead anchorman teamed with Susan Ortega (Catherine Bell) for the evening news.

His early morning joy is short lived, however, as their dog once again hoists his leg and starts to pee on the couch. Bruce picks him up and rushes him outside with him peeing all the while. Naturally, the dog is finished by the time that he is placed down on the grassy plot next to the street side tree.

Bruce ends up stuck in a traffic jam while driving to work, which causes him to be late for the weekly staff meeting. Rushing into the building, his interest is momentarily caught by a beggar standing nearby with a cardboard sign saying, "You are blind."  

His spirits are quickly dampened at the meeting when he hears that his cookie story won't be used as the station wants to use this time on a story about a local sports team's upcoming championship game. That story will be given by Bruce's arch rival for the post of anchorman, Evan Baxter (Steven Carrell), who then ribs Bruce with several comments lifted from his cookie story.

The station manager tells both Nolan and Baxter that he has yet to make a decision as to who will be the new anchorman. While he is making up his mind, he assigns Nolan to do an immediate human interest story at Niagara Falls, some distance away from Buffalo. After the meeting Bruce follows the manager back to his office to promote his chances for the job, but the manager disparagingly replies that Bruce is too nice to be an anchorman. This causes Bruce to knock his sandwich out of his hand in order to show that he can be "mean" when the situation calls for it, but he then obligingly picks the sandwich up off the floor.

While in Niagara Falls preparing for the notice to lead with his live report, Bruce hears on his station earphone that Evan Baxter has been promoted to anchorman in his absence. He is further infuriated when Baxter leads off his introduction with a quotation stolen directly from Nolan's cookie story. Speechless to the point of agony for all who are back in Buffalo watching, including Grace at home, Nolan lashes out at Evan "Backstabber" and finishes his report with a profanity laced tirade including the use of the "F" word.

(NOTE: This is somewhat surprising in this PG-13 rated movie at which many young children were present who could not get in to see "Finding Nemo.")

Of course Nolan is fired for his outburst and he is quickly thrown out onto the street with his few office possessions. Going back to his car, he spies a group of gang members robbing the blind man. Shouting at them to scare them away, they instead come over and smash his car windows, laughing at him all the time. They inscribe "Hero" on the side of his car as they leave the scene, giving Bruce the opportunity to give aid and comfort to the blind man.

Driving home that evening, Bruce is distracted and drives his car into a telephone pole. Now both the car windows are smashed and the front hood buckles up. Kneeling on the pavement in the rain at the end of this now heartbreaking day, he challenges God to give him some reason as to why everything is suddenly going wrong for him. In a fit of rage, he hurls his prayer bead bracelet into the lake, the very one that Grace had just given him for good luck the night before.

A dark cloud of gloom hangs over Nolan that evening. His pager rings, but he notices that the number is not one familiar to him. The number keeps ringing and ringing until at last he loses what little patience he has left and throws the pager out the apartment window.

The next day while once again carrying his dog out before he has finished peeing on the couch, Bruce is stunned to hear the now smashed pager somehow miraculously ringing while lying in pieces on the street. Picking it up and noticing the same number, he decides that perhaps this is a call that he should return...