Bruce Almighty Totally Explained

Everything about Bruce Almighty totally explained

The movie surprised media analysts when it beat The Matrix Reloaded after its first week of release. By the time it left theaters in December 2003, it took in a United States domestic total of over $242 million and $484,572,835 worldwide, breaking records as the highest-grossing live action comedy ever.

Plot

Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a TV news reporter at Eyewitness News Channel 7 in Buffalo, New York (WKBW-TV) who fails to get a job as an anchorman and, after a series of other bad luck incidents, complains to God that he's both treating him unfairly and is doing a poor job as supreme deity. Bruce is then contacted by God (Morgan Freeman) who grants Bruce all of his supreme power to see if he can prove that he can do a better job. Bruce quickly uses his new-found powers for personal gain. He sabotages the colleague that screwed him over so that he can get a better job, transforms his car from a Datsun 240Z to a Saleen S7, allows his favorite hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres, to get over a slump and move to the Stanley Cup, and enhances his girlfriend's breasts and sex drive. He is then reminded that he also has to take care of other people's problems. Meanwhile, Bruce endangers his relationship with his girlfriend, Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston), through his self-centered behavior. In the end, Bruce realizes that God's powers are best left for God to handle and graciously asks for God to take control of his life.
The movie portrays God as a wise but smart-aleckey elderly man. God quotes a line from one of Carrey's other movies ("Alrighty then", from Ace Ventura), and tells Bruce that if he wants, Bruce can fix all the world's problems in a few minutes, knowing full well from eons of experience that he cannot. Bruce receives millions of prayers, all from, according to God, his single town. Having to listen to the prayers of the whole world, one can only imagine how God feels. Bruce is thus able to realize just how much work God must do to keep creation "in line." As Bruce and God themselves put it in two scenes, where Bruce wants the person he loves to love him:

Bruce: How do you make someone love you without affecting their free will?
God: Heh, welcome to my world, son. If you come up with an answer to that one, you let me know.

And a second scene over prayers:

God: You made a mess of things, huh?

Bruce: There were so many [people]. I just gave them what they wanted. [Brucehad answered YES to all incoming prayers.]

God: Yeah, but since when does anyone have a clue what they want? This scene continues with poignant lines in which God allows Bruce to understand the true nature of people's problems and how to resolve them:

God: Parting your soup isn't a miracle, Bruce, it's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds time to take her kid to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says no to drugs and yes to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them, and what they don't realize is - they've the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle. Bruce then begins to use his powers to make sure that he runs things in Buffalo the way he should. He goes through the prayers properly and doesn't just say yes to all. He apologises to Evan(the employee who he sabotaged) and informs him that he quit the job and it's now his. He stands with the homeless man who has appeared to him at times with messages about life and supports him in his written sign messages to people on the street. He toilet trains the dog properly without using spiritual intervention. At the moment he succeeds in doing this, Debbie, Grace's sister talks to him about how when she gives her kids one last bit of ice cream or tells them a story, Grace prays, a lot of the time for him. That evening looking at the prayers he's receiving he looks for those from Grace and notices one just coming in. He then uses his powers to see a vision of where Grace is. He sees her crying that she feels emotional pangs because she still loves him but feels the hurt of what he did to her in his egocentric behavior and wants it to stop. At this point of the movie, a depressed Bruce walks onto the highway and is hit by a truck. He talks to God in heaven, who asks him "what he really wants." After Bruce asks for Grace to find a man to make her truly happy, God brings Bruce back to life and Grace returns to him at the hospital. In the end, Bruce has changed his outlook on life - he's happy with the "cutesy" stories he covers instead of being "Mister Exclusive" during the time when he used his powers to make miraculous occurrences happen, donates blood, and marries Grace. The ending scene features a slow close-up of the homeless man. As the camera gets closer the man turns into God, revealing that the homeless man was God all along.

Cast

Actor	Role
Jim Carrey	Bruce Nolan
Jennifer Aniston	Grace Connelly
Morgan Freeman	God
Lisa Ann Walter	Debbie Connelly
Philip Baker Hall	Jack Baylor
Steven Carrell	Evan Baxter
Catherine Bell	Susan Ortega
Sally Kirkland	Anita Mann
Nora Dunn	Ally Loman
Eddie Jemison	Bobby

Controversy and reception

The movie was banned in Egypt and Malaysia due to pressure from Islamic religious circuits who objected to the portrayal of God as a visually ordinary man. The ban in Malaysia was eventually lifted after the Censorship Board gave it the "18PL" rating (suitable for adult viewers only for a combination of two or more of the given parental ratings).

In Iran, the movie was interpreted in the light of Twelver Shiism—the predominant branch of Islam practiced in the country. The appearance of Morgan Freeman's character at the end echoes the prophesied return of the 12th Imam.

The movie received rather mixed reviews (49% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 46 out of a 100 on Metacritic.com). The film took nearly $243 million at the box office, making it Jim Carrey's most successful film since 2000's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (also released by Universal).

In a scene it parodies the Yahoo! into Yahweh, a hebrew way of saying Lord or God.

Robert Bausch, the author of "Almighty Me" contends that his book was the creative source for this film.

Telephone numbers

The film caused controversy because God contacts Bruce, via pager, using an actual phone number rather than a number in the standard fictional 555 telephone exchange. The original telephone number was 776-2323. No area code was included. Several people and groups sharing this number have received hundreds of phone calls from people wanting to talk to God. Oddly enough, some of the calls went to a church located in Sanford, North Carolina, whose pastor happened to be named Bruce. A church in Georgia also happens to use this number. This was also the cellphone number of the pastor of a church in Mercer, Wisconsin. The number even turned out to be valid in Greater Manchester in Britain. The producers noted that the number chosen wasn't in use in the Buffalo, New York (area code 716) area where the film is set in, but didn't check anywhere else. The DVD and television versions changed the display of the pager to 555-0123. In some closed captions, the original line is left in, but it's dubbed out in the audio.

Inspiration

The station at which Bruce Nolan works, WKBW-TV, is in fact a real station, and the movie featured the station's actual graphics package used at the time of filming. However, a different news set and theme song was used instead of the Move Closer to Your World package used by WKBW at the time, and only one real WKBW-TV anchor actually appeared in the film: John Murphy, the sports anchor better known as the play-by-play voice of the Buffalo Bills.

Sequel

On June 22, 2007, Evan Almighty was released. The film stars Steve Carell reprising his role as Evan Baxter, and Morgan Freeman reprising his role as God. Although Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac returned to direct the sequel, neither Jim Carrey nor Jennifer Aniston, co-stars of the first film, were involved with this film.

Soundtrack

Original Release Date: June 3, 2003
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Soundtrack
Label: Varese Sarabande

01 - One of Us - Joan Osborne

02 - God-shaped-hole - Plumb

03 - You're a god - Vertical Horizon

04 - The Power - Snap!

05 - A Little Less Conversation - Elvis vs. JXL

06 - The Rockafeller Skank - Fatboy Slim

07 - God gave me Everything - Mick Jagger

08 - AB Positive - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De Crescent

09 - Walking on water - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De Crescent

10 - Seventh at Seven - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De Crescent

11 - Bruce Meets God - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De Crescent

12 - Bruce's Prayer - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De Crescent

13 - Grace's prayer - Hollywood Studio Symphony, Brad Dechter, Sandy De CrescentFurther Information

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