Evan Almighty
- Film Worth:$6.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
In 2003's Bruce Almighty, God (Morgan Freeman) becomes weary of the complaints leveled at him...
In 2003's Bruce Almighty, God (Morgan Freeman) becomes weary of the complaints leveled at him and temporarily grants television reporter Bruce (Jim Carrey) his powers. Much hilarity ensues. In this sequel (of sorts), the filmmakers choose to expand one of the incidental characters from the first movie, Steve Carell's Evan, the guy who got Bruce's anchorman job, and fashion a modern-day Noah's Ark tale. This concept must have sounded great during the pitch, but shapes up to be a soggy comedy relying too heavily on its charismatic leading man and expensive, whizz-bang special effects, while proving light on storyline.
Evan (Steve Carell) leaves his anchorman job on a Buffalo TV station for a seat in congress. After praying for the ability to affect change in people's lives, Evan is visited by God (Morgan Freeman), who instructs him to build a massive ark in preparation for an impending flood. But Evan is more interested in building his political career, after being asked by a powerful senator (John Goodman) to back a dodgy piece of legislation. Pretty soon, pairs of animals start showing up and plaguing Evan, and his family begins to think that he's losing his mind. And this is about where the movie loses the plot.
Director Tom Shadyac and screenwriter Steve Oedekerk seem to think that slapstick sequences, crazy hair and repeated episodes involving messy animal waste provide sufficient comedy. They do not. Even though the supporting cast are strong (especially Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham as Evan's long-suffering wife and the acerbic Wanda Sykes as his assistant), it is only Carell's endearing comedic stylings that prevent this virtually one-joke movie from sinking. At best, Evan Almighty is barely buoyant.
