Bruce Almighty

Directed by Tom Shadyac, Bruce Almighty details the wackiness that ensues after an ambitious reporter (Jim Carrey’s Bruce Nolan) is given the power of god by the higher being himself (Morgan Freeman). It’s an appealingly larger-than-life premise that’s employed to sporadically compelling yet mostly underwhelming effect by Shadyac, as the filmmaker, armed with Steve Koren, Mark O’Keefe, and Steve Oedekerk’s screenplay, delivers a perpetually erratic endeavor that’s been suffused with a whole host of questionable, momentum-killing elements – with the pervasively low-rent atmosphere and preponderance of unfunny jokes and gags certainly ranking high on the movie’s list of far-from-successful attributes. And although Carrey and his costars turn in personable, entertaining work, Bruce Almighty, perhaps unsurprisingly, progresses into a hit-and-miss midsection that is, to an increasingly distressing extent, more miss than hit – although, by that same token, it’s clear that the movie does possess a small handful of effective interludes and set-pieces. (This is particularly true of a genuinely hilarious bit wherein Bruce forces a coworker, Steve Carell’s Evan Baxter, to embarrass himself on air.) By the time the protracted and aggressively melodramatic third act rolls around, Bruce Almighty has cemented its place as a disappointing failure that squanders a promising setup and Carrey’s typically unhinged performance.

** out of ****