Shawn's My Name is Bruce Review

2008 Movie #129 - My Name is Bruce

I've been interested in this movie for what is easily years now. It's almost a little hard to believe I've finally seen it. It felt like it was never going to be released. But it's coming to DVD soon and I have finally sat down and watched it. All I can say is well, you better be a fan because otherwise you ain't getting anything out of this one.

I would for sure put myself in the Campbell fan camp. I love the Evil Dead movies and have watched many of his other movies, often purely because he is in them. I've stayed away from the real bottom of the barrel stuff however, like Alien Apocalypse. I do like the man though and find he can elevate a movie above what it often deserves. I've also read both his books and played all of the Evil Dead video games. Anyway, in any case, I like the man.

I say this because your amount of Bruce Campbell liking is equally proportional to the amount you'll like this movie. I can't stress enough how essential it is that not only do you like the actor, but are pretty familiar with him and his work too. If you meet all of those criteria, you will definitely find a lot to like here. If you're not a fan, you'll sit and stare at the screen, struggling to understand what the hell the appeal is.

The movie doesn't have much of a plot to speak of, not that I speak of the plots in these reviews anyway. The directing is meh, the screenplay is all over the place and loaded with corny jokes, the acting (outside of Campbell) is pretty bad in mose cases, and overall, the movie is really not very good. But damn, it's certainly entertaining. No denying that. It's just a fun time and it never stops being cool that this movie got made in the first place.

My biggest complaint is the finale. I thought the movie was building up to a huge confrontation that might give us a little glimpse at what an Evil Dead 4 could be like. Unfortunatly we never get that moment. The finale as a whole just felt underwhelming to me and the movie went out on a bit of a weak note overall.

That's about all I can say really about this one really. If you're a fan of Bruce, you already know you're going to watch this and you pretty much already know that you're going to like it. I can't say that I loved it, but I was never bored.

***/5