Year: 2003
Director: Tom Shadyac
Country: US
Language: English
Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ (2004) showed fundamentalist Christians that Christianity could be sold to mainstream audiences in cinematic form. Since that film an entire slew of preachy no-nonsense religious films have hit the market; the majority of them being utter crap. War Room (2015) might be the worst film I've ever seen. When my christian friends want me to suggest a "family friendly" religious movie I send them to Bruce Almighty.
Jim Carrey plays Bruce Nolan, a guy who complains about God too often, that is given almighty powers to teach him how difficult it is to run the world.
Its main inspiration is Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, and like that film Bruce Almighty has a great charm about it. Despite being classified as a "comedy", Jim Carrey is remarkably restrained (this is the same guy who starred in Ace Ventura!?) as the "ha-ha" takes a back seat to the character's romantic personal problems. At times Bruce Almighty goes too far with the sentimentality, bordering on cheese, but sometimes it works.
Though the character does go through a crisis with his powers (lasso-ing the moon brings tidal waves) this is very briefly mentioned & the "moral" of the story doesn't feel earned. Even at its darkest times, Bruce Almighty is full of pop music and eerie cheerfulness. Sure, it's a fun movie, but it's far too light to be taken seriously when the movie wants you to take it seriously.
Bruce Almighty is an inoffensive popcorn muncher. The type of film you'll watch when nothing else is on. While it borders between "decent" and "forgetful", it's still a MUCH MUCH MUCH greater picture than the majority of Christian propaganda out there.
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