Oh, Jim, You Devil!

Good golly, Jim Carrey is Bruce Almighty! It's certainly an interesting notion, wondering what Carrey would do if given the powers of God for awhile. In Jim We Trust? The world would certainly have a heavenly sense of comedic timing. We always knew God had a sense of humor, but not like this.

What if you could be God for even a week? Would you take care of your immediate concerns first, or tackle world issues like poverty and war? I'm boring and anal, so I'd probably settle myself in with a wife and three kids, be president of CNN with ratings triple Fox News, and I'd put myself on the next series of "Amazing Race." The anal part is that I'd try to run things around the world meticulously, from weakening tornadoes and providing food for starving Africans to trying to free dictatorship-run societies.

Oh, sure, I'd have the occasional fun making Bill Clinton's pants fall down during a speech in front of millions, or help the hometown Braves, Thrashers and Falcons win championships. (Nobody, not even God, can empower the Hawks enough to win a title.)

But as Morgan Freeman (easily believed as a wise, witty and benevolent God) makes clear, you can't make people do what you want, else there would be no Free Will, which comes into play greatly for Carrey's Bruce.

It was more than a given that the film's writers could make comedy gold out of this premise and with this cast (which includes the really, really cute Jennifer Anniston as Carrey's live-in girlfriend, Grace).

Carrey is a local news reporter who specializes in fluff stories, but yearns to an anchor, thinking that is where he'll be respected most. Bruce is self-involved, thinking he has major problems when in reality he has things pretty good. After a meltdown and given God's powers, Freeman naturally shows Bruce that he's actually living the high life, and that running the world is a big job full of responsibility and actions have real consequences.

Bruce Almighty is hilarious. Carrey hits all the right notes between the dialogue and physical comedy, and the scenes where he tests his new powers pays off nicely, in typical Carrey-overabundance of burlesque.

Of course, being funny is great, but a movie has to touch the heartstrings and make you care about serious concerns between our major characters, too. Bruce Almighty succeeds here as well. Even the religious aspects of God's role in the world works for me.

The film is, simply, B-E-A-utiful.