Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) speaks to his audience as he prepares to board the ark in 'Evan Almighty'. - Contributed (AP):
Steve Carell is at his funniest when he's placed in painfully awkward situations, having his chest waxed in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, for example, or being transformed into a babbling buffoon in Bruce Almighty.
Here, in Evan Almighty, a sequel to that 2003 blockbuster, he's just painfully awkward because he's placed in situations that aren't the slightest bit funny.
The jokes and sight gags in Evan Almighty are so generic, obvious and watered down to please the broadest possible audience and offend absolutely no one that they'll also end up amusing no one.
Bruce Almighty turned needlessly, unexpectedly preachy toward the end, but with Jim Carrey in the lead role, at least it had flashes of naughtiness. This may as well be a made-for-TV movie, something to fill the time on Sunday morning between Davey and Goliath and The 700 Club.
Carell played Carrey's TV news rival Evan Baxter. Now, Evan is a newly elected congressman who's moved to suburban Virginia with his wife (Lauren Graham, making the most of a bland supportive-spouse role) and three sons.
Soon afterward, God (Morgan Freeman again) shows up with stacks of wood and construction equipment and orders Evan to build an ark. He even comes carrying an 'Ark-Building for Dummies' book. Because, you know, that "for dummies" joke has never been done before.
Slyly absurd
When squirrels and skunks and sheep start following him around two-by-two, it can be slyly absurd. Birds of every imaginable feather swarm his office and startle his staff; one even poops on his shoulder, which stands as the film's raunchiest joke though it isn't terribly funny.
But ultimately, this $175 million extravaganza is all about the big, computer-generated animal effects, with some heavy-handed biblical and environmental messages wedged in between. At times, the visuals can be impressive, but the climactic flood, the ark's raison d'être, looks surprisingly cheesy and fake.
Tom Shadyac, who directed Bruce Almighty as well as the Carrey comedies Liar Liar and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, cuts away to cute monkeys showing off their carpentry skills the way romantic comedy directors cut away to cute dogs barking or looking sad. It's a crutch when there's nothing else to lean on. (The script comes from Steve Oedekerk, who shares story-by credits with Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow.)
But Shadyac also leans to the right with the film's all-encompassing, none-too-subtle religiosity, as well as to the left by going after the greedy corporate bad guys who've been destroying the natural beauty around the nation's capitol with subdivisions like the one where Evan's family lives.
The obviously villainous Congressman Long (John Goodman, who would twirl a mustache if he had one) is pushing a bill that would allow for more development and destroy more wildlife, and he wants the eager Evan to co-sponsor it.
Many easy gags
Evan, however, has a boat to build. And an ever-growing beard and long hair to tend to, and eventually a flowing robe to put on every morning, because he has no choice, God forces him to do this. Seems like it would have been just as practical for Evan to continue wearing the flannel button-down and jeans he had on when he was repeatedly hammering his thumb and tripping over stuff at the start of the project, but then we'd all miss out on one of the movie's many easy gags.
But Evan has also changed on the inside, from a happy-go-lucky guy ready to take on the world to one who's self-serious and, unfortunately, self-righteous. Maybe he's achieved a deeper sense of purpose, but he isn't a heck of a lot of fun to be around. And that's a problem when he's the guy at the centre of your big-budget summer comedy.
