"Evan Almighty" Review

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

** stars (out of four)
90 minutes, starts Friday, June 22nd


Watching "Evan Almighty" is like having a staring contest with a billionaire. He's offered you a million dollars if you can outlast him. You focus, focus, focus, channel all your energy into keeping...your...eyes...open...you will yourself to keep going, knowing that a great reward awaits you if you can just...make...it. You win, you get the million, but boy, was it agony to get there. Same basic concept here. This is a film that crafts a likable character, proceeds to spend an hour and a half putting him through the cinematic equivalent of a living hell (no pun intended), and then rewards the audience with a fairly good ending. But boy, it is agony to get there.

The first film in the series, "Bruce Almighty," was wonderful, a sweet and genuine comedy with a lot of heart. That film starred Jim Carrey as the title character, who met God (Morgan Freeman, in one of the best pieces of casting ever) and was granted all his powers. Along the way, he learned the value of humility and love. That film had a truly lovely ending, and the action which preceded it was funny and entertaining.

Wisely, "Evan"'s filmmakers (director Tom Shadyac, who also directed the first film, and writer Steve Oedekirk) have decided to avoid simply repeating the first film's plot and take a whole new direction with the franchise, including a new leading man, Steve Carell, who had a small role in the first "Evan" as a rival newscaster who Bruce tormented. The change in lead character may not have necessarily been their CHOICE, but no matter, as Carell is a splendid comic actor who is just hitting his stride as a big name in Hollywood, following the tremendously successful "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Little Miss Sunshine."

Unlike the brash and unlikable Evan the first film brought us, Leading Man Evan has been transformed into a good family man with a loving wife (Lauren Graham) and kids, and a brand-spanking new job: He's been elected to Congress from the state of New York. How his opponent wouldn't have won in a landslide after tape of the "fit" Bruce gave him on live TV would have hit YouTube is anyone's guess. Evan's views and political affiliation naturally remain a mystery, as no one in any Hollywood film outside of Michael Moore is allowed to outright express support for one political party over another.

Anyway, upon arriving at his new home and preparing to start his new job, Evan takes a moment to pray and ask for God's help in "changing the world," saying "I know that with great power comes great responsibility" without even a trace of irony. Soon after, he starts to receive packages from "Alpha-Omega Hardware" (nyuk nyuk) that contain rudimentary building tools and lumber - LOTS of lumber. Soon after, God (Freeman again) appears to Evan and instructs him to build an ark, just like Noah did. He even provides a handy book: Ark Building for Dummies.

This is not exactly what Evan wants to hear right now, given his new responsibilities. He's got nice digs in the capital, a great support staff (including John Michael Higgins, Jonah Hill and the indispensable Wanda Sykes), and the budding respect of veteran Congressman Long (John Goodman). So God presses the issue by, say, having animals follow Evan everywhere he goes, or making his hair and beard grow at an astonishing rate, or forcing him to appear in public in a robe that looks like it was pilfered from the set of "The Last Temptation of Christ." And so then Evan has to explain himself. Over and over and over again.

This entire section of the movie is like that. Some weird situation is forced upon Evan, and Evan has to bluff his way out, usually unconvincingly. We in the audience could come up with better excuses than the writers conjure up for him. Found in his office with a few hundred birds all over him, Evan just sits there and acts like he hired trained animals to make a political point. Not particularly funny, and certainly not convincing, even less so when Long and his fellow congressmen actually BUY it.

Why is God making it so damn hard for Evan? I know the whole "works in mysterious ways" thing (especially in the old testament, where, for example, God unleashes 10 plagues when just slapping the pharaoh around would have worked fine), but the mysterious ways of this film strain credulity to the breaking point. God seems to delight in putting Evan in a never-ending set of embarrassing situations, making his presence known or not known just enough so only Evan knows he's there, and thus leaving Evan eternally having to explain himself. This is God-as-Allen-Funt. Given all the calamity that Evan faces en route to getting the ark built, God's efforts seem less like setting a path and more like erecting an obstacle course.

The bigger problem, though, is that there aren't really that many laughs in the film. A lot of the jokes fall flat, and few of the characters emerge as genuinely memorable - more like pawns in a narrative game. Carell is a great comedian and makes an excellent leading man, but he really isn't given that much funny to do. He bleats, blusters and makes excuses, but he's never particularly comical, which is genuinely odd. Lauren Graham does what she can with the role of Joan, Evan's wife, but she's left switching from supportive to critical at the whims of the screenplay. Evan's three sons are given only the most rudimentary of character traits and never emerge as individuals. Goodman's congressman is a typical villain, and in fact the entire Washington setting proves completely superfluous. Evan could have become a executive at a banking company and it probably would have accomplished the same thing.

As stated, the ending is quite good and ties stuff up nicely, and, as anyone who's seen any of the previews can tell you, the film does indeed end with a flood, which is very well done. Even then, God-as-prankster kicks in, as it starts to rain, then stops, letting those who were shouting insults at Evan and his crew get in a few more choice comments before the flooding begins in earnest. And so soon after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, I'm not sure how wise it is to depict massive flooding in a residential area, particularly in a silly mainstream comedy.

There's good stuff in "Evan Almighty," if you can get to it. If you fancy yourself a strong-willed moviegoer who can tough it out through a stretch of odd and relatively unfunny filmmaking, you'll get a fairly nice treat at the end. Me, I just can't help but think it's all unnecessary, and makes God out to be a first-class pain in the butt. If you do see the film, you might end us asking yourself a question, as I did: Given the ultimate cause of the flood in question, wouldn't God have been better served to avoid the whole dog-and-pony (and-bird-and-alligator-and-giraffe-and-hippo-and-EVERYTHING) show and just sent a signal to a public works contractor that they had some rebuilding to do?