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The Main Characters
--Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a TV reporter who usually does fluff pieces. He wants to be promoted to the new anchor position but someone else gets it. Bruce goes crazy and complains too much to God. God then comes down and gives Bruce his powers to see how he difficult it is running the world.
--Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) is Bruce’s girlfriend. She is really understanding and stays with Bruce despite his recent rash of complaining. She leaves when she sees Bruce kiss another man and Bruce realizes that even his powers can’t win her back.
--God (Morgan Freeman) gets sick of Bruce complaining so much so He comes down and gives Bruce His powers for a while to see how hard He really has it.
The Setting
Buffalo, New York. Home of Niagara Falls and the Sabres.
The Plot
We meet Bruce doing what he does best. Fluff pieces on the local Buffalo news show. This one is about the world’s biggest cookie being made. He complains and asks God why He’s doing this to him. He arrives to his meeting late during sweeps week and learns that his cookie piece will be cut. Bruce asks his boss to be the anchor when the current one retires. The boss sends Bruce to the Maid of the Mist to do a live feed and he’s pumped. He thinks this will be his chance. Of course, Evan Baxter, gets the new job before they go to Bruce, live on the boat. Evan even steals his monologue from the cookie piece and Bruce loses it on the boat. He goes crazy and gets himself fired. As he leaves he tries to help an old homeless man but gets beaten up as a result.
He goes home and it’s not much better there as he complains incessantly to his girlfriend Grace and blames God again. He leaves out for a drive and crashes his car into a pole. He takes the rosary beads he had and throws it into the river below. The next morning, his beeper keeps going off! (In the theatrical release, it was a 777 number but they changed it to 555 for the movie). It keeps going off despite him throwing it out the window and breaking it. He calls the number and goes to the address listed. He shows up to a huge white room and there’s only one man working there. The man asks if he could help him with the floor and Bruce mockingly says he’s free on the 7th at 7:00. He goes to room 7 on the 7th floor, and it’s also empty. Except for one man who climbs down from fixing the light and it’s the same man that was downstairs!
The man tells Bruce that He is God and Bruce doesn’t think so at first. God shows him that he is. He also tells Bruce that when he leaves, he will have His powers. Bruce leaves and tests his powers when God shows up and tells him the rules. He can’t tell anyone and he can’t take away free will. So Bruce basically goes insane with his powers and uses it purely for his own benefit. He sabotages Evan’s anchor position and tells Grace about it during a special dinner. Grace, of course, thought that he was going to propose to her. He keeps hearing voices and God tells him they are prayers. He decides to put all the prayers onto his computer and answers “YES” to them all to save time. He goes to a party to celebrate his anchor position. Grace doesn’t want to go but Bruce persuades her to go. She finally decides to go and walks in on Bruce’s co-anchor putting the moves on Bruce and kissing him.
Grace leaves Bruce and Bruce tries his best with all his powers to get her back but she won’t get back with him. Bruce goes on for his first time as anchor when the whole town goes crazy. Bruce finally realizes what he’s done and how selfish he’s been. He finally starts being kind and giving and fixing things. He gives Evan his job back too. He wants to stop being God but does so on a bridge and gets hit by a truck and has another meeting with God, because he’s dead. God sees how gracious he’s become and sends Bruce back where life seems to be good now.
Movie Review
Really funny movie. I’ve seen it countless times and it’s still funny. I’d say it was the funniest movie released in 2003. There’s some great acting by Carey as he returns to his comedic roots after a few not so good movies. Is it his funniest movie? I don’t know if it was as funny as the Ace Ventura movies or if I liked it as much as the Mask, but it’s still a great comedy with a decent story beneath it. There really are some laugh-out-loud moments and anyone can enjoy this film. ***1/4.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) The Process of Jim
This is a 6-minute featurette about working with Jim. They show him doing take after take of scenes in what he calls comedy fishing. They caught a mackerel but they want to catch an 18lb trout. They show multiple takes of Jim lighting the candles, him on the roof and Jim with the bakery props.
2) Outtakes
This is 6 and a half minutes of outtakes and most of them are absolutely hysterical. Jim Carey is definitely one of the funniest people alive.
3) Deleted Scenes
There is a HALF HOUR of deleted scenes and you can watch them with or without commentary. Since I’m a bit crazy, I watched it with both commentary and without. Some of them are absolutely drop dead funny and I don’t know why some of them were cut. The commentary on the scenes was alright. He mainly said why the scenes were cut.
4) Feature Commentary
Director Tom Shadyac does this. You think it’d be hard for one guy to find interesting things to say over the course of and hour and 45 minutes but Tom does it. He adds lots of insight into the movie, the things they cut and the acting ability of everyone. Really good commentary.
5) Chase MasterCard
This is a 33 second Chase MasterCard Commercial.
6) DVD-Rom Features
You know, I couldn’t even get this to work and I tried both computers with DVD players and many different DVD players on them. Oh well.
7) Cast & Filmmakers
You get bios on: Jim Carey, Jennifer Aniston, Morgan Freeman, Lisa Ann Walter, Philip Baker, Catherine Bell, Steve Carell, Nora Dunn, Sally Kirkland, Tom Shadyac, James D. Brubaker, Michael Bostick, Roger Burnbaum and Gary Barber. Just the usual bios with their filmographies and such.
8) Trailer
Pretty decent trailer. It’s about 2 minutes long.
B) Audio/Video
I got the fullscreen version for some reason. I usually get the widescreen but I guess I messed up on this one. It’s in 1.33:1 scope btw. It’s presented in DTS 5.1 or Dolby 5.1. You can choose from English captions, French or Spanish subtitles and French or Spanish language (in Dolby 5.1 only).
C) Liner Notes
Just one page. The front has the cover and the back has other DVD’s for sale.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
What sucks is that they have like 4 trailers (Seabiscuit, Johnny English, American Wedding and Bring it On Again) open the movie before getting to even the menu page. It wastes like 4 minutes. That’s one strike right off the bat, and it would be the only strike (the credit card commercial is close though). I said it was one of the best movies of 2003 and the DVD does a good job showing why. The extras are really complimentary to the film. The outtakes reel was hilarious, the process of Jim is an interesting look at how Jim works and what a comic genius he is and the deleted scenes were some of the funniest bits of the film! Overall, it was a satisfying DVD all things considered.
Overall Rating
8.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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