My Name is Bruce

My Name is Bruce (**1/2)

If you don't know who Bruce Campbell is, the long and short of it is that he's the quintessential B-movie actor. He's garnered a cult following mainly because of Sam Raimi's splatter-fest Evil Dead movies, along with a handful of other sci-fi/horror movies with even more ridiculous premises (Exhibit A: Maniac Cop -- "You have the right to remain silent... FOREVER!"). In My Name is Bruce, Campbell directs himself starring as himself (well, a caricature of himself) in a movie that's mostly making fun of himself. Its party a tounge-in-cheeck homage to B-horror movies, compltely with low-tech and not very convincing effects, and partly just Bruce Campbell having fun acting as if he's a complete washed-up deadbeat. Its a movie that's pretty rough around the edges, and not all of the jokes that get thrown out really work, but it is mostly enjoyable, and a mere 90 minutes long, so even if you hate it you don't have to put up with it for long.

The plot is almost too ridiculous to even go into, but, long story short, a teenage Bruce Campbell fan from the tiny mining town of Gold Like, Oregon is in the middle of a horror movie staple, a late-night romp through a foggy graveyard with a couple of girls for no real reason, when he unwittingly unleashes the ancient Chiense war God, Guan Di. Turns out that the graveyard houses the bodies of Chinese miners who were killed in a mining accident a hundred years ago, and a hex was put on the graveyard so that Guan Di would come and decapitate anyone who disturbed it. I think. Its not really completely clear and it doesn't really matter anyway. The point is an evil 8 foot tall Chinese God with glowing eyes and a big-ass halberd has been awakened and is pissed off. At any rate, Guan Di is loose and terrorizing random citizens of Gold Lick, and so Jeff, the aforementioned teenager, decides that the best solution is to kidnap Bruce Campbell, evidently working under the theory that a career of fighting fake movie monsters makes him qualified to fight an actual one. Bruce assumes that the monster is fake, and that the entire town is all in on an overly-elaborate prank by his agent.

That's pretty much all there is to say about the movie. In between the main plot concerning the all-important showdown with Guan Di, we see Bruce Campbell lampooning his career and himself in various ways: everything from Bruce on the set filming his new movie "Cave Alien 2" in which his character gets sprayed with yellow alien blood that's clearly dumped on him by a hand visible in the shot, to Bruce going home to his busted-up trailer where the mailbox is stuffed with adult magazines and he has flasks of booze stashed in every concievable location. Some of the gags are funnier than others. Bruce Campbell's comedic timing is generally excellent, although things are little more hit and miss with the supporting cast, many of which are bit players from Bruce Campbell movies of yore. There's a lot of old-school, Three Stooges-esque slapstick, which may lead to some eye rolls for those wanting something a little more clever and original. I think most everyone will find at least something to like, though, in the quick, silly, 90 minute movie that is My Name is Bruce.