Bruce Almighty - Review

I re-watched Bruce Almighty this week because I never really seriously watch this film before as I watched this on TV and it is already halfway when I watched it. I suddenly think of this film so I found it online and watched it again. Jim Carrey is probably the reason I re-watch this film because he his my favourite comedian since my childhood and for me, he is Stephen Chow of Hollywood. One of his film that I remember the most is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective because of his overacted facial expressions and body movements. He probably is one of the best comedian in Hollywood.

Bruce Almighty is the comedy film as Jim Carrey is the main cast in it and the first thing comes to our mind will sure be comedy. This film is directed by Tom Shadyac and it is about Bruce (Jim Carrey) who did not get promotion but his colleague did and faced different negative encounters after that. He blames it all to God and keep complaining about God is not helping him. Then God (Morgan Freeman) gives all his power to Bruce and see if Bruce can do his job better than him. This is an interesting story isn't it?

As this is a comedy film, it uses various types of comedy in it. The first type that I can see in this film is slapstick comedy. Bruce's pet dog always pee on the sofa instead of the tree in front of the house that Bruce ask it to. So Bruce lifts up his dog and run to the tree with his dog continue peeing. This is really funny when I see it.

Furthermore, this film also consist of surreal comedy. The most obvious example is Grace (Jennifer Aniston) gets in the toilet and got shocked when she sees her pet dog is using the toilet and reading newspaper.

Another example is when Bruce messes with Evan (Steve Carell) when he is on live camera. Bruce first uses his power to make Evan throat stuck so that his voice becomes funny. Then he changes the text on the teleprompter to make Evan mess up on the camera. After that, Bruce controls Evan's mouth to make him talk non-sense in front of the camera. This is the most hilarious part of the film.
There is one more example when Bruce is giving pressure to Grace with his power. When he mention the word 'pressure' then Grace will react with the 'feel good' reaction. It consist of little bit of potty humour in this.

Next, parody is also being used in this film when Bruce tries to part the tomatoes soup into half in the bowl after he get the power from God to prove that what the God told him is real. This is a parody to Moses who is a prophet in Abrahamic religions and he parted the sea into half to make a way, it can be seen in a scene in the film, Exodus: Gods and Kings.

There is one scene in this film that the God make fun of Gandhi, who was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India, also known as Father of The Nation in India. The God make fun of his longest fasting during India's freedom movement which lasted 21 days. This is how black comedy being used in this film. People who can relate will find it funny but some people may be offended by this.

At last but not least, there are moral behind this film. Bruce is a guy who only care about himself, he is a narrow thinking guy who only sees his own problems. Whenever he got a problem, he will just complaint and blame others. An example that shows his selfishness is he use his power to drag the moon closer to earth to impress Grace but causes tsunami in Japan that kills many people and bring asteroid down to earth just to get exclusive news on the TV. At least, he finds out all the prayers that Grace did for him and realises that how bad he treated her and how important she is. The moral of this is to appreciate what we already have and never let it go. Do not regret only when we loss it. There is a quote from this film that I love the most is "Want to see a miracle? Be a miracle". Everyone of us have the power to create miracle and make the world a better place.