A Genuine Person Would Not Waste Absolute Power Like That

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2003)

This movie created an idea that a screenwriter with vision and important messages could have used. Absolute power in "Bruce Almighty" is wasted on a misanthrope. The movie fails to explain how the source of all wisdom could lend its power to get things done to someone that hates his rivals and opponents.
Most irritating is the depiction of God disapproving of Nolan when he says his greatest wishes are that no person go hungry and that all mankind live in peace. The Morgan Freeman God retorts that he is not a candidate in the Miss America contest and asks him to wish for something he really wants. I heard a ranting political conservative in the background persuading the screenwriter to portray a God who is trusts only those so egotistic that they are incapable of emotions for people outside their own individual experience.
Perhaps Carol caadison, among others, is right: it is just a silly movie, to get a few laughs, to escape some daily grind. I just think that escapism is already plentiful in American movies. This was a theological idea of enormous potential. Why does the leading critic, Roger Ebert, claim he is incapable of contemplating the theology? Who cannot fail to perceive that God, by definition, whether actual or not, within His domain, is good? That this serious oversight significantly detracts from the humor of "Bruce Almighty"?