Bruce Almighty

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Jim Carrey's on ... or he's not. Here's the good news about this gospel-flavoured story: for most of the two hours, Jim's on, and that's a much better batting average than Carrey has managed in most of his recent innings.

Given the girth of America's Bible Belt, it's a wonder that someone managed to pitch this idea and get it greenlighted, but they did, perhaps only because Carrey threw his weight behind it. As the story opens, "Wacky Bruce" Nolan (Carrey) is a TV reporter who is having one of those days at work. Just as he's going live on-air, Nolan is told that he's missed out on getting the news anchor job. Even worse, his great rival in the office, Evan Baxter (Steven Carell), has the gig.

Bruce loses it on screen. He blames God for what has happened. Bruce is fired, and suggests to the Man Upstairs that since He was responsible for the fine mess that he's got himself into, He just might like to sort it out.

Our Bruce is extremely surprised to find a return message on his pager to present himself at the stark, white offices of a corporation called Omni Presents. Turns out that the Lord now has access to broadband, internet, email and microwave, and intends to answer Bruce's prayer.

Or perhaps not quite: God, as represented by Morgan Freeman, challenges Bruce to do a better job than Him. In fact, He hands over the Heavens and Earth to Bruce for a week to see what sort of a job he can make of it. Answer: the acting almighty performs the most famous scene from Marilyn Monroe's Bus Stop on a woman in the street and gives his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), some things that may or may not be a homage to the Bosom of Abraham.

In short, Bruce uses and abuses his new powers and generally underlines that old 70s line that if God had been a woman the world wouldn't have been in this sort of custard. Except that Carrey can do slapstick, and when he's on, as I've already said, he's a funny man. Unfortunately the movie loses it towards the end and settles for becoming a predictable romantic comedy.

Overall, though, a welcome reunion with director Tom Shadyac, who created two of Carrey's most successful early movies, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Liar Liar.