Jennifer Aniston's Filmography
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Bruce is a down on his luck TV news reporter. In a fit of desperation he challenges God and vents that if only he had God's power, he could solve all his problems. God responds to his challenge and allows Bruce to take on his powers to prove himself. Bruce soon learns that being God is very challenging.
Worst of all though, he’s got to put up with being lumbered with ugly old Jennifer Aniston as a girlfriend, and she’s sweet (she’s a nursery school teacher in case you don't get the point), she doesn’t mess him about, and she absolutely adores him. Jeez, some people really got it awful. But wait! Bruce doesn’t think he’s being taken seriously at work, and finds it weally, weally unfair when he’s passed over for a promotion he weally, weally, weally wanted. Ladies & gentlemen, the dummy has been duly spat from the pram. Such petulance truly deserves the attention of the Almighty himself you might think; a bit of the ol’ Wrath of God to show him how lucky he is oughta do the trick.
It doesn't really have anywhere to go, because the laughs sputter out quickly. Hamburg wants to emphasize the fact that Reuben and Polly are complete opposites. She is carefree, extremely flighty and indecisive, and deathly afraid of commitment. Oh, and she has a ferret which is going blind. Polly takes Reuben salsa dancing and out to eat Moroccan food, even though he cannot dance and hates ethnic food because of his irritable bowel syndrome. And he falls in love with her, blah blah blah. The film is a series of setups to watch Stiller suffer, something he can usually do pretty well. It only serves to remind people about his performances in films like Meet the Parents and There's Something About Mary. The jokes tend to gravitate towards the bathroom, literally and figuratively, and this wears thin. In other films, Stiller and Aniston have shown that they can be charming and funny, but they don't have any chemistry here. Part of the reason is that the Polly character is too underwritten for her to amount to anything. What does Bruce do with this gift? Well, the world outside of his town might as well be willed out of existence, as Bruce takes revenge on his work colleagues while making his dog pee in the toilet, while not giving a second thought for such other-worldly concerns like famine, war, or illness.
One hopes that if there is a God up there, He would take pity on those thousands of us who were and will be duped into paying good money to see Bruce Almighty on the back of a decent trailer and our faith in Carrey’s ability, and grant us two hours of our lives back with a full refund, while simultaneously forcing those studio execs who would subject us to this disgracefully half-baked excuse for entertainment by forcing them to visit each of our homes in turn and beg forgiveness. By the standards of the hardships that Carrey’s character has to “endure”, you would think this was the least He could do. |
Bruce Nolan 
Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) has a terrible life. I mean really, truly, pitifully awful. He’s a roving reporter for a local news station, a job that allows him to get out and about, meet lots of people and use his natural comic talent to entertain others. Aw, poor man. He’s also handsome, has no health worries, is financially secure, and has a full head of grey-free hair even though he’s pushing forty. Oh cease this tale of woe, you’re breaking my heart.
Or at least, that’s what any reasonable omnipotent Creator would do. But this is God according to Hollywood in George Dubya’s America, so the trivial problems of privileged middle Americans like Bruce are indulged by God himself, and God is played by Morgan Freeman, an actor whose many gifts sadly do not include playing wrathful. God thus grants Bruce all his powers while he takes a well-earned break (“God doesn’t take vacations!” says a stunned Bruce. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Dark Ages?” God retorts in one of the film’s few moments of genuine wit).
Without Jim Carrey’s star presence and ability to wring a half-hearted laugh out of all but the limpest of gags, Bruce Almighty would be simply unwatchable crap. That said, he should be given a stern telling-off for allowing his name to elevate material that’s as light on gags, heavy on schmaltzy moralising, and insultingly blinkered in its view of the world as this to the realms of a “big” summer movie. With Carrey’s genius at physical comedy and a firecracker of a premise, the fact that this manages no more than 10 moderate laughs in the whole running time is frankly bewildering, and most of them come from Carrey’s trademark gurning, so you can imagine the standard of the script. Aniston, despite her own well-proven talent for light comedy, is given nothing to work with (presumably for fear of upstaging Carrey). Freeman is well-cast and enjoys himself, but no one else manages to register on screen at all. Director Tom Shadyac regurgitates the formula from his earlier Liar Liar: passable Carrey-centered gags leading to intolerable sentimentality centred around Carrey “finding himself”. Oh-perlease. Make us laugh Jim, and if you’re not, you’re cheating us. This is not the "serious" Carrey of The Truman Show or the dire The Majestic, so we don't want to hear how the true miracles of this world are single mothers who work two jobs. The only miracle on show here is how many cinemagoers will manage to stomach that line without revisiting their Butterkist.
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