My Name Is Bruce [Blu-ray]

Please bear with me. If you're a fan of Bruce Campbell, you don't need a review to tell you to see this movie. That's ridiculous.

However, if you are among the dwindling specks of human life remaining on this planet who do not know the massive power of The Bruce, or have not yet seen any of his performances, then it is you who are ridiculous.

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Season 3 or Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2? His pal Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy? Raimi's The Evil Dead Trilogy? The USA Network's Burn Notice?

If you have just crawled from the primordial pool, and are currently adjusting to your life as a biped with newly-evolved stereoscopic colour vision, and you have finally opted for lungs over gills, I forgive you.

Read on.

A note about the film's title. Reminiscent of William Shatner's "Get a life!" cry from the now-famous 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch, the title of this film was Campbell's way of teasing his fan-base about their relentless proclivity for referring to him as the character of Ash from his best-known performance in The Evil Dead Trilogy.

This was intended as both a playful rewording of the oft-quoted "Name's Ash... Housewares!" line from the third instalment, The Army of Darkness, and a contentious statement of correction for the actor. The key difference between Shatner's breaking of the celebrity fourth wall, and Campbell's meta-fictional character in My Name is Bruce, is that our intrepid hero makes the insistence self-mockingly. Campbell has never completely turned his back on what made him popular, and begrudgingly accepts it without anything more vitriolic than a sigh, an eye-roll, and a shrug.

This is what makes him so compelling, and as a loyal fan (having gone so far as to watch Lois & Clark, suffer through 1997's remake of The Love Bug, and track down countless other B-Movies and television shows in which he has appeared), I can't help but smile every time he enters the frame. Bruce Campbell is a singular talent, and this movie is a showcase of his most endearing qualities.

My Name is Bruce is meant to be enjoyed as a bookend to his over-the-top performances in the B-Movies that created the persona the actor wears (see: Bubba Ho-Tep, The Man With the Screaming Brain, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, and Alien Apocalypse, or better yet, read his first autobiography and then watch them). In all honesty, I can't fathom what this movie would look like to the uninitiated, but I liken it to subsisting on a diet of Dung Beetle larvae and Sunny D. In other words, it would be a poor substitution for living.

As always, I look forward to whatever roles The Bruce cares to indulge in, and I shamelessly expound his virtues to anything more civilized than a mung bean. If that's you, then take heed: watch some of the above-mentioned suggestions, and then buy this movie.

First off, let me just state for the record, that I am a Bruce Campbell fan, having pretty much every movie that he's been in, in my collection (yes, including, The Man With The Screaming Brain and, Alien Apocalypse).

I think the guy's funny and witty.

That said, I was REALLY looking forward to, My Name Is Bruce (even paying a few extra bucks to procure an advanced copy of the official DVD release) as it sounded like the perfect vehicle for Bruce to strut his stuff.

The problem being, is that instead of a great parody of Bruce's life (a la, William Shatner's send up in, Galaxy Quest, played to perfection by Tim Allen) we get a very mediocre film, that makes, The Man With The Screaming Brain, play like Shakespeare.

But hey, I guess being one of the few Bruce fans who's not also a, Three Stooges fan, this film might not have been made with anything more than a, "Stooges" mentality in mind, and if so, then perhaps that's why I couldn't get into it.

But that said, I may not be a, "Stooges" fan per say, but I can more than appreciate a good bit of goofball antics, but the problem with this film is that, that's about all we get, which become tiresome very fast.

A movie needs a good script to hang the goofball antics off of, but even the script is goofball, ripping off every "Z" grade sci-fi/horror cliché (and not in a good way) that the writer could think of.

I kind of liken this to a bad episode of, Hercules, you know, the ones where they placed Kevin Sorbo and gang in the present (a filler episode). These episodes were made for the fans, to some extent, but had no depth of character, or story, they just kind of rambled on for 45 minutes, then ended.

And that's about what you get here, 90 minutes of self indulgent rambling, with no real substance, and nothing new or cool to add to the, Bruce Campbell mythos.

It's a real shame too, because the idea had so much potential for real comic genius, and a great bit of fun, but what they ended up making was a, "Seen-it-all-before-and-done-better-in-other-films" groaner.

But hey, if you're the kind of person who thought that, The Man With The Screaming Brain, and/or, Alien Apocalypse, was this decades, Army Of Darkness, then you'll probably love this movie.

Meanwhile, I'll be watching and waiting for someone to recognize Bruce's potential, and give him another great part, worthy of his comic genius (and this just happens to, "NOT" be that film, at least for me, anyway).

Please bear with me. If you're a fan of Bruce Campbell, you don't need a review to tell you to see this movie. That's ridiculous.

However, if you are among the dwindling specks of human life remaining on this planet who do not know the massive power of The Bruce, or have not yet seen any of his performances, then it is you who are ridiculous.

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Season 3 or Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2? His pal Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy? Raimi's The Evil Dead Trilogy? The USA Network's Burn Notice?

If you have just crawled from the primordial pool, and are currently adjusting to your life as a biped with newly-evolved stereoscopic colour vision, and you have finally opted for lungs over gills, I forgive you.

Read on.

A note about the film's title. Reminiscent of William Shatner's "Get a life!" cry from the now-famous 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch, the title of this film was Campbell's way of teasing his fan-base about their relentless proclivity for referring to him as the character of Ash from his best-known performance in The Evil Dead Trilogy.

This was intended as both a playful rewording of the oft-quoted "Name's Ash... Housewares!" line from the third instalment, The Army of Darkness, and a contentious statement of correction for the actor. The key difference between Shatner's breaking of the celebrity fourth wall, and Campbell's meta-fictional character in My Name is Bruce, is that our intrepid hero makes the insistence self-mockingly. Campbell has never completely turned his back on what made him popular, and begrudgingly accepts it without anything more vitriolic than a sigh, an eye-roll, and a shrug.

This is what makes him so compelling, and as a loyal fan (having gone so far as to watch Lois & Clark, suffer through 1997's remake of The Love Bug, and track down countless other B-Movies and television shows in which he has appeared), I can't help but smile every time he enters the frame. Bruce Campbell is a singular talent, and this movie is a showcase of his most endearing qualities.

My Name is Bruce is meant to be enjoyed as a bookend to his over-the-top performances in the B-Movies that created the persona the actor wears (see: Bubba Ho-Tep, The Man With the Screaming Brain, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, and Alien Apocalypse, or better yet, read his first autobiography and then watch them). In all honesty, I can't fathom what this movie would look like to the uninitiated, but I liken it to subsisting on a diet of Dung Beetle larvae and Sunny D. In other words, it would be a poor substitution for living.

As always, I look forward to whatever roles The Bruce cares to indulge in, and I shamelessly expound his virtues to anything more civilized than a mung bean. If that's you, then take heed: watch some of the above-mentioned suggestions, and then buy this movie.