ScreenWize

Evan Almighty is one of those films that, if you’ve seen the extended trailer, there’s really no need to go any further. You know the story, you get the concept and you’ve definitely seen all the laughs. Like Bruce Almighty its predecessor, Evan Almighty is a formulaic vehicle for some biblical jokes but it’s far less funny, and has a definite tendency to become preachy and sentimental as it heads for its try hard to feel good ending.

Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) is a new congressman and has acquired a huge new car and an extravagant new house as part of the benefits of his successful rise to power on the promise that he will change the world. One night when the family is asleep, he reflects on his situation and gets reluctantly on his knees to pray, thanking God for the house and asking for help in the new job. The next morning an ark-making kit awaits him on the doorstep along with two cats and a pair of pigeons. At the office he’s meant to be helping powerful and slightly dodgy Senator Long (John Goodman) get a land use bill through parliament, but he’s besieged by birds and eyeballed by fish. His house is visited by more and more unlikely creatures, and just when he’s had enough, God himself turns up in the form of Morgan Freeman, a humorous, kindly, noble and laid back kind of God, who just wants Evan to build an ark, because of the impending flood. Robes are necessary, and an increasingly Noah-like Evan can - it seems - do nothing to escape his rather weird destiny which is at complete odds with his family and his career.

It’s certainly a cute idea – a modern Noah – but there’s nothing of substance for cast or director to run with once the story is set up. The animal jokes run out of steam very quickly, and Carell has to reel in his comedy because he has a serious job of saving the world from nasty, anti-environmental legislation. The film increasingly has to rely upon special effects (the animals are impressive, the flood is not) and animal poop to keep us awake. As the film reputedly cost nearly $200 million, it may have sunk the Almighty franchise – unless there’s a miracle somewhere.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon