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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"This is just a humorous way of letting us know we should be satisfied with the good things, even if not great. In a very real sense, that includes this film." --from the review
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Bruce Almighty
Click picture to order this DVD (Widescreen) Full Screen Also Available! Click Here. A Techtite ReviewAs Always, a review of The Film and The DVD (extras)! The Film: This is a comedy for all of us who are sick and tired of the overabundance of sewer humor comedies these days. In other words, this is a comedy for all of us. It may not be perfect, but at least it isn't a Farrelly Brothers wannabe, it isn't a teenybopper-filled farce, and it isn't childish, either. That's quite surprising, in a day and age where nearly every comedy released is all the above. Bruce Almighty is none of the above, and that's what makes it good. The story: Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a guy whose life is actually pretty cool, and he just can't see it. He's got a great job working at the local TV news station, he has a girlfriend of 5 years (Jennifer Aniston) who loves him like crazy, and he has a nice apartment. Still, he yearns for the job of TV anchor; a fact he bemoans to God on a daily basis. When he finally gets the chance to be the new anchorman --and loses-- he totally loses it on the air, leading him to totally lose his job, and nearly lose his girlfriend, Grace, as well. He then smashes his car to complete The Worst Day of His Life. This leads him to shake his fists and shout into the sky, asking why does someone up there hate him so? Is it so hard to give Bruce everything he ever wanted? Here's where the comedy begins. Bruce mysteriously gets an offer from a man (Morgan Freeman) who claims to be you-know-who. After some amusing visual jokes where Bruce tries to make him prove "He" is who he says he is, Bruce is given the offer of a lifetime: he gets to be "god," with all the powers therein, while the real Man Upstairs is on vacation. Bruce can then do as he sees fit. Seeing as how Bruce is played by Jim Carrey, you can see how funny such a premise can be. The movie wisely cuts down any politically philosophical discussions here. For one, he cannot mess with free will, meaning he cannot change people's minds even if it's for the better good. After all, that wouldn't allow them to live their lives, would it? Secondly, as a "newbie" to such power, Bruce is only asked to take charge of his home city of Buffalo, not the entire world. This is good for the story, since it keeps the action based on Bruce's little "world," not the whole Earth. It also is good for Bruce, because as you'd expect, he can't even handle all his own needs, let alone a whole city, let alone the world. As Bruce soon learns, you can never please all the people all the time; a moral of which this film seems to be strongly based. He quickly augments his computer to collect all prayers via his e-mail, only to see his mailbox overflowing with responses. Most ask for something serious, the majority do not. He cannot please them all. This makes him learn the true difference between "need" and "want." Do thousands of people really need to win the lottery? Probably not. Does the local hockey team really need to win the Stanley Cup? Not really. In the end, he learns the even stronger truth: did he really need that TV anchor job, when he already had so much going for him...? Of course not. This inevitable message, though, is just the frosting on the cake. The lead is Jim Carrey, after all, leading to a lot of humorous visual gags of "Bruce Almighty" getting the most out of his newfound powers. His dog, formerly not housebroken, is suddenly using the toilet (while reading a newspaper, no less). The guy that mugged him on the street is suddenly asked to apologize, leading to the mugger saying "Yeah...only when a monkey comes out of my butt!" As Bruce tells him, today is his lucky day...and mine, since this visual gag had me laughing out loud. However, much like Bruce, this critic tends to be a little greedy, even when given a truly good film. The truth is, this film is good, yet could've been great, with just a little more work. This includes Carrey's performance, which after winning two Golden Globes is not half as free-spirited as his earlier comedies like The Mask. I remember his acceptance speech for his first Globe, when he mused how hard it would be to "talk out of his butt" (a la Ace Ventura) anymore. In a way, that toned-down approach is what makes his performance here work so well; in other ways, it holds it back. I would've loved to see an all-out FX madhouse when Bruce tries to woo Grace for a night of romance, similar to how The Mask rocked the house when meeting Cameron Diaz. Carrey's approach here is good, yet not his best. In the end, Bruce needs to learn to be satisfied with what he has, not "everything he ever wanted." His life may not be perfect, though is there any life that is? In a similar vein: while this comedy isn't perfect, few modern comedies are. People are bound to compare this tale to a slew of similar, old-fashioned, life-searching epics, including It's a Wonderful Life and Oh, God, though this film never tries to drive its message home as strongly as that. This is just a humorous way of letting us know we should be satisfied with the good things, even if not great. In a very real sense, that includes this film.
The DVD: What is it about some stars that makes them feel too "busy" to offer a simple audio commentary? Here's a thought, Hollywood: have the stars offer such an audio commentary during some required audio moment they're involved in with the film: "looping" or dubbing or what-not. No offense to director Tom Shadyac, but seriously; Jim Carrey and Jennifer Anniston are almost a requirement to the audio commentary track of this film. Of course, this is a gripe I have with many a DVD these days, so I can't centralize my disappointment on this DVD individually. It's just a minor gripe, that's all. Of course, this is a Jim Carrey movie so an "outtakes" blooper reel is almost inevitable. Likewise for "over 15 deleted scenes" which I won't list here because they all come under the category of "15 additional moments to enjoy a Jim Carrey movie if you haven't had enough." Add to this a featurette titled "The Process of Jim," and we're done. Regardless of me seemingly pooh-poohing
this DVD's extras --which I'm not really; I just don't see the need to
delve into them with any long-worded depth-- this is still a great film:
one of my favorite comedies in all of 2003. If it could've been a
"classic" very easily, well, maybe next time, Jim. It's still
one of the best Jim Carrey comedies I've seen since The
Mask, and seeing as how that film made Jim a megastar, that's
the best compliment one can give in a review. In the end, the film
deserves it...if not the DVD extras. Where were you for the commentary,
Jim...?
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