Bruce Almighty

Video:

Jim Carrey is not given the heavenly treatment with the HD-DVD release of "Bruce Almighty." The 1.85:1 VC-1 encode transfer plays it safe and delivers a decent looking transfer, but doesn´t send anybody out in the streets to praise "Hallelujah!" Detail is good, but never truly impresses. You can see some of the deeper details of Carrey and Freeman´s faces, but the transfer never approaches the quality seen by many of Universal´s better transfers. The film never offers a three-dimensional feeling experience with its slightly subdued level of detail. Color is good, but not great as well. The colors appear slightly dated and lack any tremendous pop. Black levels are fine and whites are very strong, as apparent in the scene where Morgan Freeman first wears a white suit. The source materials used for "Bruce Almighty" are clean and no digital flaws or overly intrusive problems from the print are apparent. The transfer is good, but "Bruce Almighty" never soars to the clouds.

Sound:

"Bruce Almighty" again suffers because of its source materials and inability to be overly impressive when it comes to sound quality. The problems with the sound do not lie in the English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack, but in the limited presence of the original sound design of the film. Much of "Bruce Almighty" in constrained to the front three channels, with the center channel nicely delivering the dialogue and the left and right channels echoing sound effects and directional effects. The musical score by John Debney is kept low key and sometimes moves back to the rear channels. The .1 LFE subwoofer channel rumbles a few times during the film, but as is the case with most comedies, there just isn´t a lot of reason for it to shake proudly. The important part of any comedy is the dialogue and the jokes. Never once during the film did I miss a spoken word.

Extras:

The HD-DVD release of "Bruce Almighty" is a direct port of the standard DVD release. The first feature listed on the menus is the Feature Commentary with Director Tom Shadyac. Shadyac loves to use the word ´riffing´ when referring to Carrey´s impromptu abilities. He provides a lot of back information on the characters and the story and a decent amount of information pertaining to the making of the film. There are large amounts of silence in the commentary, but it is a decent list. Next up are the film´s Deleted Scenes with Commentary (30:28). Many of these are longer takes showing Carrey at his absolute funniest moments. His impression of Sammy Davis Junior was very funny and should have been left in the film. The deleted scenes are smashed together as one cohesive feature and features Shadyac offering up commentary on the deleted scenes. The Outtakes (6:37) are short, but very funny. Carrey loves to play on the set and many of his outtakes are worth watching. The aptly titled The Process of Jim (5:54) finds Tom Shadyac discussing his working with Jim Carrey and looks at more outtakes with the actor as he discusses how he works with Carrey to pull funny moments from the actor. The final feature is the film´s Theatrical Trailer.

Closing Comments:

I´m not the best person in the world to review a Jim Carrey movie. I´m biased. I find the man terribly entertaining and when he is being a bit zany in his comedies, I have a hard time not enjoying myself. The man is made of rubber has great comic sense. "Bruce Almighty" is one of the better examples of the man at play and what he can be done with a good project and a director that is familiar with the actor. With Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Aniston, Carrey has perhaps the best supporting cast of his career. The HD-DVD has a Plain Jane transfer and neither impresses or disappoints. The quality is decent, just not great. The picture and sound are passable and the ported supplements are a treat for all fans of Jim Carrey. Most of the time spent in the supplements is just additional Carrey comedy. This isn´t the best release and I´ve always been surprised that this film has not gotten more attention. Perhaps when "Evan Almighty" hits store shelves, this film will get revisited.

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