Praise the Lord and pass the laughing gas: Jim Carrey is thumping The Bible with an almighty vengeance in his new comedy caper Bruce Almighty.

Directed by Carrey's Ace Ventura: Pet Detective mentor and friend Tom Shadyac, and co-written by Carrey's long-time gag-writer Steve Oedekerk, Bruce Almighty is a movie that operates inside its own cocoon.

In other words, if you think that this is funny, then Bruce Almighty is funny.

But, if you think Carrey was at his best in The Mask or more serious work such as The Truman Show and Man In The Moon, then Bruce Almighty is just silly nonsense.

God knows Carrey and his clan are trying to do something with some layers of meaning. In life, Carrey says he is truly a believer and, on the screen, Bruce Almighty is designed to wrestle with some major spiritual issues, including the very existence of a higher power and the doubt that creeps in when individuals are dealt a blow.

Trouble is, this wrestling happens in the middle of a pratfall comedy. And one of the first things Carrey does when he gets God's power is to lift a shapely woman's dress over her head. Some like it hot, a la Marilyn Monroe, and invading a woman's privacy for a glimpse at her private parts is thought to be hilarious in this kind of movie.

But, of course, I'm getting ahead of the plot. If you haven't figured it out from previews yet, Bruce Almighty is about an ordinary Buffalo goofball (Carrey) who is granted the powers of God after he despairs of His existence. And this is after being passed over for the anchorman's job at the TV station that employs him as the resident clown reporter.

The powers are granted for just a limited time and just in the Buffalo area and just to prove a point.

God, in the movie's best twist, is embodied on Earth by Morgan Freeman, who plays the deity as a man just as willing to polish floors as a janitor as he is to prance about in a blinding white suit (Here Comes Mr. Jordan). Freeman's racial heritage serves to enrich and deepen the notion of a Judeo-Christian God who made man in His own image.

Alas, that is not really the point here. Instead, it is to allow Carrey to cavort. And to turn into a total cretin in his marriage to a hapless little woman. Armed with unlimited powers, Carrey's character has unlimited inclinations to act like a selfish idiot. That turns his wife off.

She is played with stalwart determination by a shell-shocked Jennifer Aniston, who not only looks Friends-less but seems to be acting in a different film (or wishes she was, based on appearances). It is unsettling.

Carrey, meanwhile, owns the screen in some of the movie's best comedy sequences. But he loses the story and the comic energy just as quickly in others. So Bruce Almighty lurches along in fits and starts, from funny to embarrassing, from earnest to egotistical, from yuks to yuck!

What elements appeal to you most, and sway your final entertainment rating, may depend entirely on two things. One, do you already like Carrey when he is mugging with that plastic-fantastic face? Two, do you already believe so strongly in God that you are willing to see Him goof off in a comedy flick, one that is meant for true believers but only ones who are willing to go for the big joke?

(This film is rated PG)

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