Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie Review

An at-times hellish Blu-ray debut...

Among Hollywood's finer casting coups, Bruce Almighty stands atop the pile with not one but two casting triumphs: Academy Award-winning powerhouse Morgan Freeman (an actor who holds his own gravitational pull in the industry) and future leading-funnyman Steve Carell (whose weekly stint as the ever-bumbling Michael Scott in NBC's The Office has put me in many a good mood). Both men manage to elevate an otherwise saccharine Jim Carrey vehicle packed with enough schmaltz and sentimentality to displace six movies-of-the-week; a film whose moral fortitude is awkwardly juxtaposed with forced humor that could only have originated in a script meeting for Ace Ventura 9: Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Don't get me wrong, director Tom Shadyac (Patch Adams, Liar Liar, The Nutty Professor) produces plenty of harmless fun and loaded laughs, but without Freeman's heavenly pleasantries and Carell's inane babblings, Bruce Almighty wouldn't
be nearly as memorable as it is.

It's not exactly a "Let There Be Light" moment, but it does the trick...

Eyewitness News reporter Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) would do anything to sit behind the anchors' desk, but he simply doesn't have the commanding charm or polished personality of his Channel 7 colleagues, Susan Ortega (JAG's Catherine Bell) and Evan Baxter (Steve Carell). After a series of unfortunate events leaves him shouting at the heavens and throwing a man-sized temper tantrum, Nolan gets a visit from the Almighty Himself (Morgan Freeman). But before Bruce can wrap his head around his encounter with the Divine, God grants him all the power and responsibility befitting a deity, unleashing the self-loathing reporter into a world filled with desperate prayers and selfish requests. Initially, Bruce thrives: he parts seas of soup, walks on water, creates an online database to grant prayer requests, and uses his newfound talents to nab a coveted spot at his news station. However, he soon has to contend with angry believers, the scorn of his girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston), and the consequences of his haphazard decision-making. Will Bruce come to understand God's interactions with man? Will he find a path to happiness? Will he have a Wonderful Life moment that alters his future for the better?

Bruce Almighty uses the rubber-faced antics of its star as a means to an end: the thinly-veiled sermon at its heart is admittedly a thoughtful reflection on age old questions of faith, but Shadyac's gags are separate entities rather than fully-realized cogs in the cinematic wheel. It's almost like watching two films. In one, a self-absorbed manchild is given the keys to the Kingdom and embarks on an immature quest to fulfill his every desire. In the other, a psychologically-troubled failure struggles to deal with the turmoil of his life until he gets the chance to realize the error of his ways. Conceivably, there is a perfect medley of the two... but Shadyac never finds it. Carrey's devilish behavior turns on and off as it suits the shifting story: even though he handles the emotional subtlety and the frat-boy hilarity of the film's two Bruces with ease, he has a hard time blending the two into a cohesive whole. Granted, I burst out laughing on more than one occasion -- I never found Bruce Almighty to be the soulless bore many detractors have accused it of being -- but I was constantly aware of how much more engaging and entertaining the entire experience could have been had a more seasoned director been holding the reigns.

Considering Carrey has proven he's more than capable of transcending his In Living Color roots (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Truman Show solidified that fact), it's a shame that his supporting cast is given so many opportunities to steal the show. Freeman combines humility and authority to create one of the more convincing pictures of God to grace the screen, and Carell literally bites into the frame and chews up as much celluloid as he can sink his chattering teeth into. Carrey, on the other hand, simply runs through the motions and gives us what we expect. Ah well, Bruce Almighty nevertheless remains a favorite among families that's made a fortune for its filmmakers. Critics will roll their eyes at its release, but fans will be happy to add it to their comedy collection.

Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As I plowed through Bruce Almighty's problematic 1080p/VC-1 transfer, I couldn't believe I was watching a film released in 2003. While its Blu-ray encode marks a significant upgrade over its DVD counterpart, its high definition presentation is a mess: skintones are often faded or flushed, contrast ranges from overblown to underwhelming, grain and noise spike at random, and black levels are rarely resolved. More distressingly, artifacting skitters across the screen throughout the film, edge enhancement interferes with the integrity of the image, and sharpness is all over the map. Some shots boast refined textures and crisp edges while others look as if they've been cranked through a dough press. A few warm interiors look pretty good but, more often than not, foreground objects either appear disjointed from their backgrounds or flattened against them. It doesn't help that fundamental flaws like telecine wobble and contrast wavering pop up to drag the picture down even farther. Ultimately, the Blu-ray edition of Bruce Almighty would probably have been a decent disc in 2006, but it's a decidedly different disc in 2009. Take a look if you must... just brace yourself for a thoroughly disappointing transfer in desperate need of a complete overhaul.

Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal may have given Bruce Almighty the full lossless treatment with a new DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, but it doesn't deliver a substantial improvement over the 2007 HD DVD's Dolby Digital-Plus mix. While dialogue is clean and intelligible, voices often sound a tad pinched or muffled. Likewise, even though effects have been granted more dynamism, the majority of cracks, sheens, and slooshes are crammed into the front speakers. The film's subdued soundfield is still fairly immersive -- twittering birds, rustling trees, and distant car horns ensure that the rear soundscape isn't entirely vacant -- and ambience (particularly in crowded restaurants and parks) finds its proper place. However, I never felt as if I was standing amidst a throng of people during Nolan's various reports; in fact, I was constantly aware of how artificial the illusion actually was. Blame it on poor sound design or mediocre mixing: either way it amounts to a forgettable lossless audio track that doesn't boast the LFE weight or channel aggression in needs to stand tall amongst its Blu-ray brethren.

Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Not much to report here: Bruce Almighty skims the Blu-ray surface with a shortlist of special features that fail to provide an extensive glimpse behind the scenes. Instead, we get an overly technical (at-times pretentious) audio commentary from director Tom Shadyac, a banal six-minute EPK called The Process of Jim, thirty minutes of decent Deleted Scenes with optional director's commentary, seven-minutes of admittedly amusing Outtakes, and Universal's standard My Scenes bookmarking tool. For whatever reason though, the Theatrical Trailer that appeared on previous home video releases is nowhere to be found.

Bruce Almighty Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Simply put, if you dig Bruce Almighty's tone and temperament, you'll be more forgiving of its average Blu-ray debut. However, casual fans and newcomers will probably be too distracted by its middling video transfer, uneventful DTS-HD Master Audio track, and truncated supplemental package to enjoy much of anything. Sure, the disc outclasses Universal's standard DVD release, but it fails to provide Carrey enthusiasts with a definitive edition of the film.