Bruce Almighty....

Ok, well I was a little afraid "Bruce Almighty" would end up being a guy movie, you know? We were pleasantly surprised.

First, Morgan Freeman as God. He did a fine job playing God, I thought. A good sense of humor, care, love. Better than George Burns ever did. A lot of places where he could have been offensive, but wasn't. He was believable as the Almighty. (Which has always got to be a hard role to fill!)

Worst line in the movie? When "God" encourages Bruce to look around himself for the answers to his prayers. It got a bit squishy at that point, people as their own gods? kinda thing. But there was also a bit of truth in it. As Bruce was praying for a sign from God, he kept ignoring all the signs in front of him that God was placing there, he wanted something from on high.

Best jokes that Christians should get? Well, the internet service that Bruce used to help him answer the prayer requests that were coming into him was not "Yahoo!" but "Yahweh!" And, during the party scene, just before Bruce gives in to a kiss from "Another woman," there's a shot of him leaning up against a Golden Calf.  

Best line of the movie? Bruce yelling at God, "How do you get people to love you if you can't mess with their freewill!"  Ah, there's the rub, to so many questions.

Best bits in the movie?

That the love of his life is called Grace, and he only discovers what she means to him at the end of the movie.

What our constant prayers may seem like to God, if he wasn't omniscient and omnipresent.

That the movie, on another level, is really about Bruce being loved and pursued by God without God messing with his freewill.

That Bruce finally comes to the end of himself, and that's where he really finds God. (And a semi!!)

That his prayer request was not that Grace would love him again, but that she would find someone to love her as much as she had loved him.

 

At no time during the movie did I think, "Hmm, I wonder what the time is?" which is always a test to see if I'm into it or not.

I really enjoyed this film, so many things to think about. Ideas, words, images, thoughts, verses, plowing through my head as the movie went along... I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Yes, there is some language, and some suggestive sex stuff, but, I think its OK for most adults. And don't go just for the laughs, there's much much more to this flick than laugh gags. Go for how it challenges our perceptions of God, and prayer.

I think that if I didn't know God, I would leave the theater wishing that there was one just like that one, and that he cared enough to listen to my prayers. I suspect that God may see a blip on the radar screen of incoming prayers, as people go home from this film.