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"My Name is Bruce" Review

Alright just got home from watching this with Fenner tonight. First off I want to say that you will not find a bigger Bruce Campbell fan then me. Evil Dead is what got me into horror. Bruce Campbell from movies to TV and books (I have read "If Chines could Kill" 3 times) can do no wrong in my book. Needless to say I was eager to see this film and was shocked when I heard it wasn't going to get a theatrical release. Thus we settled on Blu Ray....

Having seen the film now I know why it wasn't at your local multiplex. If your a die hard Bruce Campbell fan like I am it is definitely worth seeing. You will get the sense of humor the film is going for as well as all the great one liners and sayings from past Campbell films. You will pick up throughout the film that most of the cast is either Campbell friends or previous cast members from Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. It is what it is, a film I'm sure was a blast to make and a reunion of sorts to all the great B movies Bruce has been a part of.

Was the movie good? Well that is a tough question to answer. If you have never heard of Bruce Campbell or even if you have but aren't a big huge mega fan you will surely hate this film. It is literally something I felt I could have made if I had the small budget I am sure this film had. The storyline was insane, very comic bookish and at the end of the day it all came together with the hero saving the day. I felt there were so many great moments that were missed in this film mply because the story and effects were so goofy.

This movie I felt would have really worked well if you included all the self deprecating humor and psychical comedy style but added a really intense realistic zombie or witch type villain. I wanted this to be more realistic and not so over the top. If they played this out to be sort of a comedy/horror film much like Evil Dead it would have worked. But the way it was played, so over the top, so goofy it really just felt like a bunch of friends getting together to have a good time and oh by the way while were here lets get in front of the camera. It just didn't feel like a real movie to me.

In the end if your a Campbell fan it is definitely worth getting a hold of mply because Bruce is in it. The behind the scene features are great and the extras in general were nice. I am sure this was a fun film to make I just wish it would have capitalized on it's potential.....

Thanks for the review and heads up. I love Bruce but Im not a mega fan. I might check it out before buying.

I agree with you bro, I felt exactly the same way.

As a Bruce mega fan I knew I wouldn't hate it, but it didn't really feel like a real movie to me.

It seemed like a fun little video, with some real gems of scenes in there.

What killed it for me was the over the top lly villain and the song interludes.

The rest was fine, but the bad guy was pretty damn cheesy as well as the effects.

Without the threat being viable, it just never felt real.

That said, Bruce was what made the movie enjoyable.

Seeing him act as himself, albeit a very bad off veron of himself, reacting to his fans and generally being a bastard... that rocked.

So Bruce being Bruce saved the movie from totally sucking to me, and made it more enjoyable.

Definitely a movie to watch totally smashed drunk or high, but even then...only if you are a HUGE Bruce fan.

If you could t through Man With The Screaming Brain or Alien Apocalypse...then this will be easy to deal with.... it is much better than either of those films.

I totally agree with you guys. If you're a huge BC fan AND your shitfaced drunk you'll enjoy it immensely.

I just got this movie in today via Netflix.

I'll try to watch it tomorrow.

I wasn't expecting much, but now I'm expecting even less.

So I just watched this and... I liked it.

Sure, the "villain" wasn't serious, but c'mon you have to admit Guan-di was hilarious.

It's no oscar winner, but it's worth a RENT and 1 1/2 hours of your time.

Ok . . . So I've had a few days to think about this.Like Booman said above, we watched this last week (in blu ray no less) and this is actually a hard film to review.

Why?

Well a few reasons.

Bruce has a HUGE fan following (and I'm proud to be a part of that) and also the Evil Dead series is one of the largest cult clascs.

So I'm going to review this two different ways:

As a Bruce Campbell Fan: This film is by no means a master piece but it was nice to see Bruce get back into that "Ash" like character one more time.

Lets face it, this is the closest thing we are going to get to an EVIL DEAD 4.

It had a lot of one liners (which I loved!!!) and referred some of Campbell's previous work.

It was great to see him make fun of himself like being a complete jerk outde of movies or living in a trashed up trailer . . . great stuff.

I also liked picking out characters who were in previous Campbell films and lets not forget Ted Raimi.As a fan I wasn't disappointed because of the reasons I just typed above. If you are a fan of Bruce then you should probably check this out just because you owe it to yourself.As an unbiased reviewer: This movie was pretty bad.

Another friend of ours watched this with us and he said "one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen".

I'm not talking acting because you'd expect that to be bad . ..

now lets talk story.The general premise is actually good.

A demon is unleashed on a small town and a Bruce Campbell fan kidnaps his movie hero to save his town . . . only for him and the town to find out that Bruce in real life is a douche bag.

However, just about every scene is long, drawn out and cluttered with WAY too much dialog.

The movie wasn't even Camp . . . it was a movie trying to BE camp (and this NEVER hardly works).

Movies are camp because they are made to be serious and turn out hilarious . . . you can't make a movie to be funny by pretending it's serious so it's funny (I almost just confused myself there

)

Also, the monster of the film is this Chinese protector of bean curd?!?!?!?!?!

This demon looked fake . . .and I mean super fake.

When the monsters Bruce and Sam did over 20 years ago look better than the demon in Bruce's new film . . .. that's a HUGE problem.

If they had made this monster half way serious (like they mostly did in Evil Dead) and THEN add the funny charm of the Chinned one . . . that's just a good combination.

However, when they made the monster look lly and have a lly purpose it just doesn't work as a horror/comedy . . . it's just comedy . . .and a bad comedy at that.

If you're not a fan of Mr. Campbell do yourself a favor and don't watch this movie in fear that it might tarnish your future experiences with his clasc films from the past.

i completely agree with Justin and Joel on this one. Only watch this if you are a hardcore Bruce Campbell fan. There was masve amounts on online and print hype on this film. When i finally did watch it, I was actually disappointed. The movie was okay, had several laugh out loud moments, but it just did not live up to any of the hype it received.

take care, Tommy

Great review.

&

Agree with everybody. This movie is cheesy movie lovers and Bruce fans.

I'm both PLUS I saw it at a theater, when Bruce was going around promoting his film. So, I got to met the one and only and that made the movie ten times better.

I have to say, it was pretty lly...I mean, like someone said...protector of bean curd? LOL

It's one of those movies you'd probably watch once..

Just watched this the other night. Loved it. Bruce Campbell was great as usual. I agree if your not a big fan of Bruce Campbell and his kind of humor this one isn't for you.

Joel and I actually watched this a second time. I can't vouch for him but I liked it A LOT more the second time around. I think I had such high hopes and it had been so anticipated for so long that when I first saw it I was just like wow, this isn't worth the hype. But the second time I knew what to expect and found it a lot funnier. Still you have to be a Campbell fan but if you didn't enjoy it that much the first time do yourself a favor and watch it again. A lot of the little funny things really shine through better....

I love My Name is Bruce! Bruce Campbell kicks ass!

Joel and I actually watched this a second time. I can't vouch for him but I liked it A LOT more the second time around. I think I had such high hopes and it had been so anticipated for so long that when I first saw it I was just like wow, this isn't worth the hype. But the second time I knew what to expect and found it a lot funnier. Still you have to be a Campbell fan but if you didn't enjoy it that much the first time do yourself a favor and watch it again. A lot of the little funny things really shine through better....

Maybe you're just slowsorry J...couldn't rest

Yea we got to watch this the other day at my zombie photo shoot and everyone was laughing there ass off. I enjoyed it, Im a super BC fan. Def love the one liners and the cameos from past friends. Def worth buying if your a big BC fan.

We need a BC icon for the boards i think lol

Finally saw this over the weekend and loved it, but I can see how the "Bruce who?" crowd would hate it.

Its worth seeing just to see the chainsaw, too bad we never got to see that thing kick some Chinese-Bean-Curd-God ass

Much, MUCH better after a second viewing