My Name is Bruce (Movie Review)

Plot Preview

Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell) is currently busy producing his newest movie, the terrific Cave Alien 2, when a young fanboy* asks for his help. He accidentally released an ancient Chinese daemon that now has set out to slaughter everyone who is related to the fanboy – coming from a small town this puts its whole population on the brink of a bloody death.

The passionate Bruce Campbell fan sees only one solution to this problem: Bruce himfels has to save the town utilizing his elite monster slaying powers which he aquired acting in various grand movies like Evil Dead. The True Fan faithfully overlooks the dramatic downfall which Bruce’s career has taken since his heydays. Neither is Fanboy irritated by the fact that his idol turns out to be the most arrogant asshole alive who couldn’t care less about his fans and annoyingly keeps hitting on fanboy’s mother (and pretty much any other female).

Thanks to some gentle persuasion involving a baseball bat and Bruce’s subsequent erroneous assumption that the whole story is just an elaborate birthday present from his manager (Ted Raimi), he agrees to pick up the fight against the daemon…

Review

As one might guess from the plot description, My Name is Bruce is not exactly a movie that is meant to be taken seriously. It is a parody – primarily on Bruce Campbell himself, but also on the movies in which he acted.

„Getting you laid is hard enough without this Bruce Campbell factor.” (fanboy’s pal)

Most of the jokes are at the expense of Bruce. He’s really pulled to pieces – not one likeable trait is left to him. He is obnoxious, alcoholic, arrogant, chickenhearted and a general pain in the neck. The whole crew of his current movie hates him and Cave Alien 2 itself sucks so much that it probably wouldn’t deserve even a direct-to-DVD release. Also, numerous Evil-Dead-style horror clichés are taken to their distorted extremes. For example, each “creepy” scene is set in thick artificial fog with massive backlighting.

One aspect of this movie is quite clear: My Name is Bruce is pure trash. And that’s a good thing. 🙂 One might rightly doubt whether outsiders can relate to this flick. The many references to Bruce’s past on the screen would take a lot of the fun if left ununderstood. Not to mention that people who do not value Evil Dead would hardly be compatible to My Name is Bruce…

Unfortunately, the movie can not maintain this level of trash throughout the whole length. There are several scenes where pace and intensity drop. There is also not much of a tension arc. My Name is Bruce is more like a sequence of loosely connected and abstruse scenes. Usually the atmosphere is strong enough to get at least a smile out of the weaker scenes.

Blood and severed body parts (primarily heads) are appear frequently. Still, there is less splatter in My Name is Bruce than one might expect. Most scenes concentrate on the “social” interaction of Bruce.

Bottom Line

My Name is Bruce is a blissfully trashy Buce-Campbell/Evil-Dead-parody which will reward fans with an entertaining evening – and non-fans are probably going to avoid it anyway. 🙂

Trailer

By the Way

My Name is Bruce was directed by Bruce Campbell himself and the screenplay was written by Mark Verheiden.

Once again the usual suspects have met at the set of this movie. Besides Bruce Campbell there is Ted Raimi in at least two supporting roles. Director of photography Kurt Rauf was production assistant for Evil Dead. Composer Joseph LoDuca also wrote the music for Evil Dead and uncountable other Buce-Campbell-cooperations. I was really surprised not to find Sam Raimi listed in the credits as well.

A sequel called „My Name is Still Bruce“ has been announced.

* I only called the character Fanboy because I cannot remember his name. Strangely, I wasn’t able to find his name on the internet either.

More Opinions

„The film is little more than Campbell cracking self-deprecating jokes, making fun of his fans, and painting a bizarre portrait of himself as a despicable loser who’s been given an opportunity to redeem himself. It is a film that sets itself up for miserable failure, but succeeds because of Bruce Campbell.“ (David Walker / DVD Talk)

“What we have here is a great capstone to Bruce’s body of work and a great tribute not only to himself, but to his fans. It will delight die-hard Bruce Campbell fans, but the casual viewer may not get most of the humor if they don’t know who Bruce is, but I think they would still find it funny.” (Daniel J. Hogan)

“THE movie for B-Movie Fans, Bruce Campbell Fans and every low-budget moviegeek out there.” (IH8YH)

More Information

IMDb rating: 7.8/10 (2,676 votes)
IMDb:My Name Is Bruce (2007)