If this is a comedy, shouldn't it be funny?

Rating: 4/10 (11 September 2003)

This is a nice idea, and has some funny moments (Bruce teaching the dog to pee, and testing his godlike powers of seduction) but really isn't as funny as it should be. It relies far too heavily on Carrey's frantic mugging and face-pulling for laughs, and doesn't bother to flesh out the characters. We are clearly meant to sympathise with Bruce and find him fundamentally decent, but the character is whiny, self-obsessed and petulant. Jennifer Aniston is completely wasted as his girlfriend, in a part that is criminally under-written, and the movie's tone veers uncomfortably between slapstick and sentimentality.
The film's problem is that it's too formulaic. It ends with a typically hollywood "isn't it nice how we've all grown?" moment that will make the more cynical viewer (in which category I include myself) feel a little queasy from the sugar overload.