Movie Review: Bruce Almighty Blu-ray

What if you had the power of God and used it for all the things you wanted, wouldn't life be wonderful. But what about all of God's responsibilities and all those people asking for his help?

Film making 18/25
Cinematography 17/25
Audio 17/25
Bonus Features 12/25
Total 64/100

Jim Carrey plays Bruce Nolan a second rate news reporter who would love to move up to news desk but is relegated to human interest stories. When another reporter is promoted to anchorman while Bruce is waiting to do a story on the anniversary of the Maid of The Mist in Niagara Falls he goes nuts.

The TV station fires Bruce for swearing on the air when he heard the promotion of fellow reporter Evan Baxter played by Steve Carell. Right after being fired he sees a man being beaten by a gang and tells them to stop only to have the wrath of the gang turned on himself.

Bruce blames god for all his problems and when his girlfriend Grace, played by Jennifer Aniston, tells him he should pray and let God take care of things he scoffs at the idea. Bruce is mad and goes for a drive where he tells god he can do better and gets the chance, God has a few surprises in store for Bruce.

Bruce is mad but keeps getting messages on his cell phone about a job and then gets more on the TV so he ends up throwing his cell phone out the window where it's crushed by a car. When it is still ringing he goes out and picks it up to read a message that he should go to a warehouse for a new job.

God, played by Morgan Freeman, tells him he should not ask for things he may not like and probably cannot handle but Bruce insists that he can do the job God is doing and much better. So during a walk on the Atlantic Ocean God tells Bruce he now has all his powers and is going on a vacation.

Bruce starts to do things for himself like make his girlfriend's breasts larger, gets his dream anchor job back and gets his dog to use the toilet. He also starts to hear prayers and must answer them in order to quiet the voices that God responds to so in a rush he answers everyone's prayers with a yes.

Chaos reigns on the area as everyone's smallest wishes come true and soon the city is thrown into riots due to so many people winning the lottery. Bruce finally admits that he cannot handle the job and tells god that he needs to take back his job.

Bruce goes out to find God to give him back his job and is run over by a truck and killed so when God asks him what he really wants Bruce tells him. Bruce really wanted his girlfriend to be happy with however she wants to be with and not himself as he sees how selfish he was when he tried to trick her into loving him using his powers.

When he awakes from his accident after the rescue crew revived him he takes his human interest reporter job back and Grace takes him back as well. Bruce finds out that he is content doing the work he enjoys and can leave the higher jobs to those that are better suited to them.

Jim Carrey is a natural at this type of almost slapstick comedy and his impressions, quick wit and energetic style makes him great for this part. The film also stars Morgan Freeman who does a great job with his natural smooth and cool attitude as God in the film but a little more latitude should have been given toward the actors.

I can see that the film would have been a little better if Jim and Morgan had been allowed to do more of what they are best at and given a little less direction during their roles and filming. The movie tends toward a two sided story of a know it all brat with sudden God powers and a man finding out who he is and how to be content with that.

I really enjoyed the film and did not think it deserved its average rating that I have seen on Rotten Tomatoes and other sites as it was a fun and not too religious look at God and belief. Bruce Almighty is a great film and one that is worth owning as it has a great story, very funny characters and a lighthearted look at belief.

The Blu-ray release of Bruce Almighty is good with a fairly decent video transfer and the less than stellar audio transfer in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Spanish and French DTS 5.1 Surround Sound. The video is pretty good but the video is all over the place from color problems and other things that really did not work.

At one time the scene will look great and the next will have colors off and the next will be too grainy so you have a mix of things that do not blend well. It seems like they got tired of working on the film transferring it to high definition and skipped through a lot.

One scene to mention is the moon scene where Jim Carrey is romancing Jennifer Aniston that just shows off the great high definition when it's done right. The film has some good music here and there that was a great choice for the story and what was happening at the time that also came out well but some voices just sound off.

The Blu-ray edition of Bruce Almighty has deleted scenes and outtakes, a feature looking at the creative mind of Jim Carrey and feature and deleted scenes commentary by Director Tom Shadyac. The Blu-ray bonus content is pretty good and the feature about Jim Carrey really shows how funny he truly is on camera and the creative genius he has for comedy but it is too short.

The outtakes bonus is only 6 minutes long but is well worth it for a few good laughs but doesn't really add enough to the films value. The deleted scenes with or without commentary by Tom Shadyac shows the great comedy of Jim Carrey and others but they just did not make it in the film.

Bruce Almighty is a great film and well worth owning on Blu-ray but the transfer for the video just did not live up to some of the better films on Blu-ray. You also do not have a really great set of extra features and while some are pretty good there is a lot of unused space on this Blu-ray disc that begs for more Jim Carrey behind the scenes antics.

Bruce Almighty on Blu-ray is one of those get it if you don't already own it on DVD as the Blu-ray is better than the regular DVD edition but not that much better to go with a second copy.