Bruce Nolan VS Michael Newman (Bruce Almighty VS Click) Blog

Universal Control.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." 

-Job 1:21

Bruce Nolan, God’s chosen fool.

Michael Newman, Death’s universal catechism.

Most of us live normal lives. We go to school or work, eat food, then sleep. Not much changes usually. Yet some yearn for something new and fresh, even if it’s short-term. So, what if you could be touched by the hand of the supernatural, just for a single moment? These two average men knew what it was like to be above all, and it changed their lives for the better.

Before We Begin...

For Bruce’s media we’ll be sticking to the original movie, and also its spin-off Evan Almighty. We won’t be using its Tamil-language or Indian remakes as those don’t seem to be canon, and Michael only has one film to be used. Statements by the creators are also being included if they add anything notable.

Sources used:
Bruce Respect Thread

God Respect Threat

Universal Remote Respect Thread

Background

Bruce Nolan

“It’s a b-e-a-utiful day!”

Bruce Nolan was a humble, quaint little reporter with his happy wife Grace and dog Sam residing in the big city of Buffalo, New York. He’d report on minor things in the world, like bakers making a giant cookie, or soup kitchens! Aw, how cute. Bruce became known around Buffalo as “the funny reporter.” But he wanted to be taken more seriously. One day he finally scored his big break, reporting near Niagara Falls! That’s sure to boost his reporter cred, right? Well… that offer fell through while he was on location. Frustratingly, he threw a fit live on air and lost his reporting job a day later. At the end of his ropes, Bruce shook his hand at God and questioned what kind of an entity he had, playing games with one of his children like this. Then, suddenly, Bruce heard a voice. A voice that led him to a completely white warehouse building, where a man was doing some upkeep. Played by Morgan Freeman, he claimed to be God himself. Obviously, Bruce called his bluff, but was sorely mistaken. This man showed the powers of God, like the one from the Bible. He bet that Bruce couldn’t last a week with his powers, and more importantly, his responsibilities. Bruce took the offer while God went on a break.

Bruce took life by the horns, making it so much easier for him. Without his reporting job, he could make his own headlines now with ease! And make them better than the actual news! In doing so, he may or may not have caused some tsunamis in Japan to happen by accident. Meanwhile, he was also hearing these… weird voices in his head? His old news firm hired him back, seeing his potential now, and started fucking with his least favorite coworker. Evan. Michael made Evan say things he didn’t mean, live on air, and ended up getting his position. Were these godly powers making Bruce… a mean person? Without consequences in the world anymore, his wife ended up separating from him. Bruce became distraught, all the while realizing those weird voices from before are actually prayers. Prayers that Bruce needed to take care of now. Who knew that God would have such big shoes to fill? One of those prayers was Grace, saying that she still loved Bruce, but just needed to let go. She… didn’t want to love him anymore, but Bruce needed to prove he was worthy of loving. Bruce talked to God one more time, striking him of his powers, and told God that all he wanted was for Grace to be happy. In his last moments of humility, Grace came back to him, realizing what he had done. Bruce went back to that old reporting job, and stayed put within his field. Reporting on the little things. Because what is life without them?

Michael Newman

“You are going to be the hottest chick in the world, but you still gotta have brains. So tomorrow, I'm going to teach you calculus.”

A middle-aged man in New York living with his wife and kids was part of an architecture business, and he made enough to get by. It was a normal life, going to work, eating, going to work some more, procrastinating harder, you get it. But eventually the years caught up with this man, and he was forced to turn to alternative means to keep up with time rushing by. This man’s name was John Click. Lmao, just kidding. It was Michael Newman. Doing some late night shopping, Michael found himself at the “BEYOND” section of Bed, Bath, & Beyond. Working there was Morty, played by Christopher Walken, who offered Michael a new way to view his life. A universal remote that can literally… control the universe. Someone being too annoying? Mute. Wanna beat someone up? Pause. Wanna skip a really boring part of the day? Fast forward. In front of Michael was an answer to every problem. But then… things started to change.

The remote started to remember Michael’s problems. The remote would start automatically fast forwarding through little things years at a time. Michael didn’t know what to do, he had achieved his dream CEO position for his job, but was fat and old, and missed his kids’ childhood. He returned to Morty for a way to go back, but rewinding was impossible. Michael continued on and eventually witnessed his father’s passing. Standing above the tombstone, Morty revealed himself as… the angel of death. The spirit of eternity’s end itself had manifested a human form to test Michael. To see if he was truly worthy of life, and he wasn’t. Michael, wrought with grief, eventually found himself on his deathbed staring up at his former wife, kids, and the rest of his entire family, and realized he had only seen a part of them he wished he could’ve known. In his last moments, he regretted everything. But then, suddenly, he woke up. Back in the Bed, Bath, & Beyond! Oh my god, what a miracle. It was all a dream… right? Realizing the error of his ways, the remote was lying on his counter with a message from Morty. A message to do better, and a reminder that we are who we are because of consequences. Life isn’t easy, but we should love it for posing a challenge in the first place. With a final breath, Michael picked up the remote… and threw it in the garbage.

Equipment

Bruce Nolan

Saleen S7

Bruce’s car that he uses to get from A to B. It used to be a Datsun 280Z, until Bruce crashed it into a streetlamp.

Yahweh! Insta-Prayer

Bruce was having trouble being God, and could hear every voice praying to him all at once. He needed to answer the prayers in a clean and efficient way, so he created an app on his computer to do it. It quite literally has every single prayer thought of by humans who have prayed.

Prayer Beads

A reminder to always keep Grace close to him.

Michael Newman

Cadillac Sixteen

Michael’s car he uses to crush this poor kid’s robot dog. It’s a pretty standard car.

Bike

I think this is actually his wife’s bike. Why did he steal it

Universal Remote

The iconic remote itself. Given to Michael by Morty, this remote controls the laws of reality and can never be thrown away. These powers are elaborated on in the next section.

Powers & Abilities

Bruce Nolan

Blessed

Bruce, just for a week, was bestowed with the almighty powers of God himself. Passively, he can hear prayers of others across the world. He’s allowed to keep his powers as long as he doesn’t tell anyone else he’s God, or messes with anyone’s free will. This is a good time to mention that other powers God shows but Bruce doesn’t do are also being counted here, as anything God can do Bruce can do as well, since Bruce is literally God.

Summoning

With the most basic of abilities, he can summon just about anything he wants into existence. From asteroids falling from the sky, to a man named Juan Beldez that makes really great coffee.

Object Creation

Bruce can practically summon any object he wants out of thin air. Even stars!

Object Manipulation

In addition to creating objects, he can also make them do whatever he wants. Even explode a fire extinguisher!

Spatial Manipulation

Somehow God created a filing cabinet bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Body Manipulation

God gave Bruce extra fingers, and Bruce made Grace’s breasts bigger (by accident). Man’s got priorities

Wind Manipulation

So, Bruce uses this to blow up a woman’s dress. In fear of this blog getting a NSFW strike, I won’t show the GIF. Just believe me here. God dang pervert.

Animal Manipulation

Bruce controls all of God’s creations, even the non-human ones! This should go without saying but he also can just will them out of existence.

Technology Manipulation

With this ability Bruce can control any type of technology he wants. From cars to radios, he even rewrote a teleprompter while it was on air.

Liquid Manipulation

Just like Moses, Bruce can part the red soup and other liquids with just his hands. He can also change what the liquid is completely, like when he turned water into wine.

Fire Manipulation

Let there be light!

Sound Manipulation

Not only did he make Evan say different things while he was live, he made him make a spontaneous fart noise. Ew.

Probability Manipulation

Bruce made a dog and a police force dig up a body for his news story, then made the opposing camera crew at the scene get arrested for pedaling marijuana. What a coincidence!

Weather Manipulation

Get ready to feel the thundah!

Pleasure Manipulation

Just by using his mind, he made his wife feel pleasure. I thought he couldn’t mess with free will…

Telekinesis

Bruce has some classic Matilda-like mind powers.

Water Walking

Just like Jesus did…

Teleportation

By simply just thinking of a location, Bruce can get there in an instant.

Shapeshifting

God usually takes the form of a human, but typically turns into a dove when he wants to say goodbye. He can also just straight up become other people.

Time Travel

God took Evan back to Prestige Crest at the time when he made it, and then transported him back to the future where humans had changed it. Although it’s possible this could also be perception manipulation. (See Before the Verdict)

Michael Newman

Social Influencing

Michael’s only known ability without the remote. He somehow managed to convince his boss that taking off his clothes would increase how hard he works.

Main Menu

This button warps reality around the user and anyone nearby, taking them to the remote’s pocket dimension. The main menu has a few different known features within it.

• Commentary - A way to revisit past events of the user’s life, with an omniscient voiceover of James Earl Jones in the background. The voiceover can tell what others are thinking.

• The Making Of - Takes the user back to when their parents were fornicating and making them. The beauty of life, I suppose.

• Chapter Selection - A way to revisit specific points in the user’s life.

• Old Girlfriends - Shows previous female lovers the user may or may not have had.

• Credits - Shows the user their life was directed… by themselves.

Volume

The remote’s volume button can manipulate the sound on people and objects. Turning it up and down, or off entirely. Michael could likely use this on himself in stealth scenarios.

Fast Forward

This button speeds up things happening to others by massive amounts, and no being can comprehend how fast they're going when this is used on them. Michael can also fast forward himself days, months, and even years.

Auto Fast Forward

When the user fast forwards too much, the remote becomes aware of the user’s preferences and plays around them. Let's say the remote detects you fast forward every time you have a test coming up, eventually the remote we'll fast forward through every test you'll have in your life from that point on. Michael has no control over this.

Chapter Forward

If certain events in Michael’s life are considered “chapters” he’s able to skip them entirely with body being left in autopilot on the physical plane, while his mind is allowed to skip around.

Rewind

Allows Michael to see previous events, but doesn’t allow him to interact with them.

Pause

Pauses the entire world all at once. This allows Michael to interact with anything in paused time while he, the martyr, remains unaffected.

Slow-Mo

So, I can’t really share a GIF of this since the only time this happens is when Michael is slowing down time to view a jogging woman’s pair of breasts, and again I’m not trying to get this blog taken down from an NSFW warning. Crazy I had to do this twice in this blog already.

Picture in Picture

If somebody’s really annoying you, just use Picture in Picture mode! All it does is play a different channel in front of whoever and is only visible to the user.

Color

Michael can change into any color he wants to potentially camouflage himself. He just uses it to give himself a tan, though.

Aspect

This changes how others look, wide or panorama, but it’s only viewable to the user.

Language

Michael can change the language that the target is speaking. Only hearable by the user.

Delete

In promotional material for the film we see the remote has the option to delete things from existence. It’s not too far-fetched to say the remote can do this normally as well but we just don’t see it in the film, and its scope is mostly unknown. (See Before the Verdict)

Immortality (Type 4)

At the end of his lifespan with the remote, Michael will revive in the Bed, Bath, & Beyond with his previous memories and where he first found it. He regains immortality if he accepts the remote again. We know the entire movie isn’t a dream because Michael gets the choice to keep the remote near the end, and also Morty remembers him.

Feats

Bruce Nolan

Overall

• Became an accomplished reporter

• Lived with God’s powers for a week

• Realized that all he truly wanted was to make Grace happy

• Learned to take pleasure in the little things in life

Strength

• Pulled the moon down to Earth (8.06 x 10^29 N, Class Z Lifting Strength)

• Creates and wipes out stars easily (Star Level)

Durability

• Never gets attacked when he has God’s powers, so he likely scales to his own strength

Speed

• The Saleen S7’s top speed is 298 mph / 480 kmh (Subsonic)

• Answered a little over a million prayers in just a few seconds (Mach 43, High Hypersonic)

Michael Newman

Overall

• Became an accomplished architect

• Controlled all of reality with the Universal Remote

• Realized how to be to be a better dad, husband, and friend

• Learned to take pleasure in the little things in life

Strength

• Can pause people in time to repeatedly hit them, building up damage to their body when unpaused (Possibly Infinite) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

Durability

• Fell back onto this table and was fine

• The Universal Remote can never be broken permanently, no matter how hard someone tries

Speed

• The Cadillac Sixteen’s top speed is 40 mph / 64 kmh (Superhuman)

• Is always able to fast forward himself to become faster

Weaknesses

Bruce Nolan

Bruce, despite all his almighty-ness, has his limitations. He can’t mess with free will in specific. What that means is he can’t control people outright, and can get easily outsmarted because of that. Regardless, he also can get pretty careless with his powers at times. Being literally God means you don’t have much to worry about… until you do. To put it bluntly, he gets in his own head a lot.

Michael Newman

The Universal Remote might be pretty powerful, but it quite literally impairs its user in more ways than one. Michael doesn’t have control over Auto FF, which could make it hard for him to learn in a battle. Michael specifically though, at the end of the day, is just a regular average human. Easy to kill, easy to manipulate, easy to be everything’d when up against someone even just slightly greater than him.

Before the Verdict

Bruce’s Time Travel

In Evan Almighty, we see God take Evan back to Prestige Crest back to when he made it. Since the background kinda just… fades into existence… It's totally possible this could just be God messing with perceptions or making illusions or what have you. Just not specifically taking Evan to that location at that point in time specifically. Well, we can negate this reasoning with one thing. We know this isn’t perception manipulation since Evan can smell the environment around him when he’s transported. Evan probably wouldn’t be able to smell the OG Prestige Crest if it was just an illusion. And if you wanna argue that God was manipulating Evan’s senses at the same time, I’m sure that’s completely possible, but that’s just so situational and specific that time travel is much easier to assume.

Michael’s Delete Button

So, for some reason, in promotional works for Click like on the DVD we can see the Universal Remote has an option to delete things. What does that mean? Well it says parking tickets on the button, so it probably means physical objects, but this never happens in the film. Heck, the remote in the film is even different from the one on the box art. So, yeah, the Universal Remote we see in the film probably can’t do this. Even if you wanna argue it can, its full extent is unknown, and since a being above all like Morty was unaffected by the remote’s pausing, he’d likely be unaffected by the remote’s deletion, and therefore Bruce would be also.

Michael’s Infinite Damage

So, an ability Michael can be seen doing is hitting paused targets in time over and over again that they build up damage over time. Yeah there’s not much to really add here. It’s essentially Link’s stasis ability from Breath of the Wild just not on a time limit. Theoretically, it’s infinite damage, but it’s only infinite in that it doesn’t have an end and can be stopped at any time. Michael only has a finite time to live, so really it’s just an unending amount of damage more than anything.

Verdict

Stats

This part’s a bit easy to cover. Michael’s remote can affect the universe on a pretty big scale, but in terms of raw strength he isn’t pulling down the entire moon and erasing stars from the sky. Nor is he moving at Mach 43 to type things on his computer. While it’s true that Michael using Fast Forward shows greater movement speeds than Bruce or even God does, there’s technically nothing stopping Bruce from doing that himself, but who knows. Ultimately Michael’s faster movement speeds would hardly matter in comparison, as it would just kind of throw Bruce for a loop before he eventually catches him. 

Stats go to Bruce.

Now that stats are covered, this matchup can really be broken down into three categories. Power, skill, and win cons. Let me break it down for you.

Woah hey a category template! The budget’s really going up!

Powers

These two are defined by the powers they’ve brought about in the world, so let’s talk about who has more versatility and overall more powerful… uh, powers. Bruce can do just about anything he wants, with manipulating matter and animals and technology and the list goes on. He can summon whatever he wants to help him out on the field as well. However, Bruce can manipulate time and theoretically even pause Bruce and do infinite damage to him until he dies right? Well… here’s the thing. While Michael would be able to deal with any external thing Bruce can summon, Michael would never have the chance to use the remote’s functionalities to affect Bruce. In Click we see Michael stop time a number of times, but Morty (an all-powerful being like God) is unaffected by this power. It can be assumed that since Bruce would be on the same tier of power as Morty that it wouldn’t affect Bruce as well. This isn’t stopping Michael from using the remote on himself and getting the upper hand that way, but when the main method of doing damage that Michael has is negated, it’s pretty clear that the person he’s fighting against would take the “powers” category.

Powers go to Bruce.

Skill

So this is an interesting category! While Bruce may have the edge in powers, would he use them as effectively as Michael could? Well, this category at first seems pretty simple. They’re both two average men who got crazy powers for a short amount of time and lost them at the end of their stories. They’d be equally as experienced, and therefore, equally as skilled, right? Well, you’d be right at first, but here’s where things get complicated. There’s an ability I neglected talking about for Michael in the “powers” section. Michael’s type 4 immortality. Type 4 immortality means that after death, you will always be revived at a certain point in time, no matter what way you die. And after death, Michael will always be revived in Bed, Bath, & Beyond with his previous memories. This means that Bruce and Michael would likely have the same skill level when the battle starts, but as it goes on and Michael keeps dying, he’d always come back with knowledge and tips from the previous battle. Given the fact that Michael has an ability where he can go back and revisit his older memories, with a voiceover telling him what others are thinking, means he’d have downtime in between deaths to study different things about Bruce in general. While they’d have equal skill in the beginning, over time Michael would take this category in spades.

Skill goes to Michael.

Win Cons

Win conventions, conventional ways a character can win a fight. Arguably the most important factor in a battle like this, with characters who are neck-and-neck in two categories. Remember, it’s not about who has more win cons, but who has more easily executable ones. Let’s get into it. Ways Bruce can win the fight are pretty large, or at least you’d think. Bruce has the opportunity to kill Michael with just about any of his powers. Summoning an asteroid to hit him, summoning a swarm of animals to maul him, literally pulling planets down from the sky to crush him, all things that Bruce can do. But… hold on, none of those would actually win him the fight. Similar to the reason Michael pulled out with winning the skill category, he has immortality. Any kind of death that Bruce can bring about to Michael would ultimately be voided by this. So, how can Michael capitalize on this power? Well, there’s only really, potentially, one thing he can do. With Chapter Forward, Michael can skip whole events entirely, which could theoretically stop Bruce from even comprehending what the heck just happened in general. This is the only feature that Morty in the movie was actually affected by, so Michael could theoretically just press Chapter Forward to take him to the end of the fight. A bit of a weird win con, but there’s an issue with it. The problem is the ‘how’. How would Bruce be killed? How would it even work? Michael’s body would be on autopilot, but if he truly has no other way to kill Michael then would this even work? Well, because of this, Chapter Forward seems more like a way to execute a win con, rather than an actual win con entirely. So, with neither of them being able to kill each other permanently, does that make this entire battle a draw? Fortunately, no. There’s one method I haven’t mentioned yet with Bruce. His time travel. Given the fact that Bruce can go back in time to any point he wants, he can eventually find Michael before he gains access to the remote again during that period of reviving in the Bed, Bath, & Beyond and finally kill him permanently. It would technically be very hard for Bruce to figure this out, but it’s the one and only way for Bruce to actually finish this fight. It doesn’t matter if it takes millions, billions, or even trillions of years of Michael dying and getting revived for this win convention to come about. It’s the only way this battle can finally end and be put to a close.

The one (and only) win con in this fight goes to Bruce.

Conclusion

Bruce Nolan

“And that’s the way the cookie crumbles!”

Advantages:

• Much stronger with faster combat speeds

• Much more capable powers

• Would likely be unaffected by pausing

• Could stop the Universal Remote from working altogether

• Time travel allows Bruce to find Michael after death eventually

• Faster car

• Better movie

Disadvantages:

• Could be hard to catch Michael at first using Fast Forward

• Michael’s immortality makes all methods of killing him (except one) moot

• Would be less experienced and skilled over time in comparison

• While he can’t be affected by the remote, his summons can be

• Can’t mess with Michael’s free will

• Never can get rid of the Universal Remote permanently

• Lives in Buffalo

Michael Newman

“Forever and ever, babe.”

Advantages:

• Faster travel speeds with Fast Forward

• Will always have access to the Universal Remote

• Would get more experienced and skilled over time

• Can pause and manipulate anything Bruce summons

• Chapter Forward could theoretically skip Michael to the end of the fight, where he comes out on top…

• Immortality would keep him alive for a long while...

• Solos Gojo

Disadvantages:

• Average human stats in every way

• No clear method of beating Bruce in general

• Much less capable powers

• Has little control over the remote’s auto abilities 

• Likely can’t pause Bruce in time

• The remote can’t resist Bruce’s technology manipulation

• Slower car

• …It’s unknown how Chapter Forward would beat Bruce outright

• …Immortality would only be delaying the inevitable

• Still waiting for them to play Gangnam Style

• Transphobic

Michael just couldn’t click with Bruce Carrey-ing in this fight. Evan if it doesn’t seem remotely possible, we’ll be charging Bruce with battery after his godlike victory.

The winner is Bruce Nolan.

Final Thoughts

Dash Fish

Hey all! It’s me Dash, and only Dash. I thought this could be a fun little bonus blog for a silly matchup to work on in between projects. This matchup is weird because I thought it was gonna be a stomp, but in the midst of the weirdness I actually discovered a true debate. And that’s awesome. I took it on regardless of my preconditioned notions since I love Bruce Almighty, it’s a bit of a comfort film for me, and Click is really just a horrible film that I love to hate. It has some genuine great and comedic moments, but those moments are in between so many racist, awkward, unfunny, hetero & cisnormative moments that it doesn’t really matter to me. But those are just my genuine thoughts on the film. Check out both of them if you haven’t, honestly. One for an underrated Jim Carrey movie, and the other to remind yourself that you can never be as careless of a person as Adam Sandler is. Goodnight everybody! Oh and also fuck NuxTaku. That doesn’t have anything to do with the blog I just hate that dude

Next Time

El Macho VS Fairy Godmother (Despicable Me VS Shrek)

(i know this was voted for the next time in the komurphy blog but i promise it’ll be the next time for the actual next blog)