739. Bruce Almighty (2003)

Starring: Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston

Director: Tom Shadyac

Running Time: 101 mins

Bruce Almighty is an American film about a man who constantly complains that God is picking on him, so God decides to give him all of his powers to show how hard it is to run the world.

Now, this film is silly, with one of the most preposterous, but simple concepts I’ve seen on screen, and it’s not at all intelligent, not dealing with the themes of religion or power in any particularly deep or interesting way, but my god is it fun to watch. It’s just a barrel of laughs from start to finish, full of insane farce, a whole heap of idiocy and a hilarious performance by Jim Carrey.

That’s what I’ll start with, Jim Carrey. His unique comedic style isn’t bulletproof, it’s largely a bit of a hit-or-miss characteristic, and is very often just too annoying to be funny, but here, it really works its magic.

Jim Carrey’s character is a lot more down-to-earth than some of his more eccentric and irritating characters that do go over the top, and that’s what I liked about him here, that he had a sense of realism while getting caught up in this totally unrealistic case of affairs. Also, he’s probably the perfect person to use if you want to see how insane you can go with all of God’s powers, bringing some of the obvious things to the table, and then some of the most unthinkably idiotic things that you just can’t help laughing at.

The whole concept is a lot of fun. This time, I really don’t care if it’s convincing or not, because it goes so far into the extreme of fantasy that it just becomes pointless to think about it, meaning that you get to enjoy this film a whole lot more, albeit on a very shallow level.

It’s not only the overall concept that’s fun, but the jokes in this film are consistently funny, fresh and farcical. The supporting cast, composed of Jennifer Aniston, Morgan Freeman and Steve Carell really turn this into a solid comedy, with some fantastic taking the mick out of themselves and references to their real-life personas.

Overall, then, this film gets a 7.7, losing points for not being at all intelligent, but gaining a whole lot more for being so much fun.