MOVIE REVIEW: 'Evan Almighty'


From today's Oregonian ...




Movies with nine-figure budgets can't really afford to gamble. And so "Evan Almighty" -- the most expensive comedy ever made, with a budget somewhere between $140 million and $175 million -- is about as surprising as an English muffin.

"Evan" is a loose sequel to 2003's "Bruce Almighty" (so loose, in fact, that the original script was written as a stand-alone film). It opens with "Bruce" supporting character Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) winning a seat in Congress.

After he piles his family into an SUV and moves them into a ridiculously huge McMansion, he's overwhelmed on multiple fronts. Evan's wife (an utterly wasted Lauren Graham) and three sons are jealous of his time. A conservative congressman (John Goodman) is railroading Evan to support a bill that "opens up fringe areas of parkland for development."

And God Himself (Morgan Freeman) is leaving piles of lumber on Evan's stoop -- telling him to build an ark. Three hundred cubits long, 50 cubits high, the whole Cosby routine.

The Lord also saddles Evan with two of every animal. And flowing robes. And an unshavable beard. And platitudes so bland, they wouldn't offend an atheist.

Oh, "Evan Almighty" is pleasant enough. It's mildly funny, the cast is solid, the direction is workmanlike, the special effects are amusing and it's hard to argue with the moral. There are a few laugh-out-loud lines, many of them emanating from the mouth of Wanda Sykes as Evan's office manager. (Evan's metrosexual beard-styling solutions are pretty funny.) All this will no doubt please the film's financial backers, who can congratulate themselves for basically remaking "Oh, God!" with better actors, hotter comedians and the best special effects $140-175 million can buy.

But like a megachurch pastor in a loud sweater, "Evan Almighty" excels at telling you unchallenging things you already knew while leaving middle-class assumptions unstirred. The movie takes the bravest of good-taste, limousine-liberal stances -- everything from "We should take better care of the environment!" to "You should balance your work and home life!" to "Spouses should support each other emotionally!" The movie's fine, but like the actors (especially Carell and Sykes and Jonah Hill), it's playing things a little too safe to be interesting.

C-plus; 90 minutes; rated PG for mild rude humor and some peril.

'Evan Almighty' (The Oregonian, June 22, 2007)

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Posted: Fri - June 22, 2007 at 11:51 AM        

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