‘Evan Almighty’
We all remember ” Bruce Almighty” and how funny it was to see God(Morgan Freeman) giving him his powers. And of course we all loved to see what Bruce did with those powers and we couldn’t get enough of it. Well now it’s Evan’s turn and we are all hoping that things will be just as crazy and hilarious.
Unfortunately it wasn’t as great and ‘almighty’ as we were hoping it would be. Steve Carell, who is known for being funny and creative in the ‘Office’ failed to deliver the performance to make this movie a hit. It is a family comedy that the younger children might enjoy, but who can blame the little children. However, you adults will be extremely dissapointed and yawning the whole way through.
This is a horrible excuse to watch cute animals harass Carell as he reprises an expanded version of a minor but funny role he played in “Bruce Almighty”. Only in the last 30 minutes does “Evan Almighty” put his gifts to decent use. Epically hairy and biblically robed, Carell suggests at that point what a bolder, more psychologically serious treatment of religious conviction would have been like. Until then he seems like Paul Lynde freaking out in a high-concept kiddie comedy from the 1970s.
Most of the gags are underscored by grubby close-ups. One shot pulls in tight for a movie theater whose marquee reads “The 40-Year-Old Virgin Mary “. The filmmaking is the equivalent of large type.
Most of the story’s energy is spent building to Evan’s showdown with John Goodman , as a crooked senior congressman who wants Evan to co-sponsor a shady land-use bill. No one’s party affiliation ever comes up, but apparently God wants more church in His state. Shockingly, this flood is less an allergic reaction to any global catastrophe and more the result of what happens when a studio has too much cash to blow on a wild effects sequence.
Actually, at a rumored $175 million, the movie tops “Waterworld ” as the most expensive aquatic comedy ever made. The resulting merits of such an achievement are debatable. Hopefully a lot of that money went to Wanda Sykes , who plays one of Evan’s staffers. It’s a huge relief to see that in a movie full of critters, Sykes, for once, is playing a human. She wins most of the movie’s laughs tossing barbs at anyone she can.