Wishful Fantasy just made for Carrey & Morgan

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2013)

This neat idea works on many levels and if like me, you haven't always enjoyed Carrey's OTT mugging and frankly annoying persona at times, it just works better here.
We all know the structure to this, where Bruce (Carrey) is given God's powers, by God, a regal white-suited black man, Morgan Freeman, giving the Lord an accessible and friendly, even 'human' persona. Once he has these, Bruce breezily sets about getting what most of us men would be tempted by, bigger breasts for his fiancé (Jennifer Aniston), a new stylish wardrobe and many other slightly dubious wishfuls, pushing the boundaries of taste, but, in my view, not over-extending them, the certificate 12 pointing at this.
Revenge to street punks after they laugh and mock his wish for a peaceful world is wreaked in imaginative and witty ways, done with good SFX. Some fairly obvious musical links could mar (Barry White when Bruce pulls the full moon closer, when he intends an ultra-romantic night with Aniston) but generally these are fun and don't outstay their welcome.
However, when Bruce kind of uses his powers for his own uses and gets his old job back and things go swimmingly but as backlashes and repercussions from his spontaneous 'miracles' backfire and he loses the love of his fiancé, his powers disappear. The film obviously intends this to have a moral resonance but the light-hearted nature of the comedy obviously dilutes this and some might miss it altogether, whilst the religious will suitably feel that some justice has been done.
It does get rather mushy and a bit sickly as Bruce finds that Grace, his fiancé has been praying to the real God (God has an extremely popular and busy email address for prayers that Bruce has access to, another nifty idea!) that her Bruce can find the errors of his ways etc etc. Get over this rather icky patch and you'll bask in the afterglow as the film concludes.