Bruce Almighty – directed by Tom Shadyak. Comedy. A local small-time newscaster yearns for advancement and sells his soul to God to get it. 101 minutes Color 2003.
★★★★★
I always thought Jim Carrey should play Hamlet. With those eyes. So handsome. So slender. So essentially romantic.
Imagine all that attack held in check. “To be … or not to be!” Imagine him entering the “not-to-be” of that speech, the demoting ratiocination of it, the reduction, the sin of that repression. For if ever an actor was gifted with the To Be it is this one.
This picture is a comic Faust, the tale of a man given supernatural powers, and then having to live up to them imaginatively and compassionately.
Of course, Carrey is very funny when he is not doing that, and the script helps him bountifully.
Jennifer Aniston is present with all her skill as a light comedienne, a skill equaled by no other actor of our time. We have the great Phillip Baker Hall as the boss. We have Steve Carrell playing a nasty, a part which suits him to a T. And we have Morgan Freeman playing God. Or perhaps we should say we have God cast as Morgan Freeman.
Well, the film is full of sight gags, gags which are very witty, and amusement reigns throughout.
What is the reverse of a sight gag?
Hamlet is the reverse of a sight gag.
Jim Carrey is a sight gag. He, like Hamlet, is also a genius.