 Will Jim Carrey in top form be able to put a dent in the Matrix juggernaut? Some filmmakers are suggesting that he stands a good chance. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times describes Carrey's latest film, Bruce Almighty, "a charmer" and tells of one scene that had him "laughing so loudly that people were looking at me." Chris Kaltenback in the Baltimore Sun, while judging the movie "a clever conceit that never moves beyond the cleverness," nevertheless concludes that it represents "some of Carrey's best film work." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggests that the movie may rescue Carrey's career, which has sustained a number of devastating blows recently. (He still, however, draws down a $25-million paycheck.) "Carrey is utterly delightful, whether pulling off some hilarious pratfall or energizing the most mundane piece of dialogue," Gillespie writes. Stephen Holden in the New York Times says that Carrey "sustains a maniacal energy that explodes off the screen in blinding electrical zaps." Bruce Westbrook in the Houston Chronicle finds Carrey "at the peak of his powers, from rubber-faced histrionics and flailing pratfalls to gleeful sarcasm and dead-on impersonation." Clearly, however, the reaction to this Capra-esque feature about a has-been TV anchorman who becomes God, is not infinitely positive. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post lays into it with a vengeance, describing it as "something between an indiscretion and an atrocity." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News describes the movie as "a lame supernatural comedy that loses Jim Carrey in a wilderness of witlessness." Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe & Mail sees it as a contrived effort to rescue Carrey's career from his last debacle, The Majestic. He writes: "The watchwords here are three: Play it safe. The whole thing reeks of the formulaic, of a carefully packaged bid to propel the star back to his appointed place in the commercial constellation, all the while depriving him of the dark side that got him there in the first place." And Lou Lumenick in the New York Post concludes that the film represents "a step backward for this prodigiously talented physical comedian." |
