Evan Almighty

Well, they've certainly got the weather for it! You have to wonder if the good people at Universal have got hold of some infernal rain-making device just to soften up audiences for this modern day rerun of Noah and the great flood?

An unusually imaginative approach to franchise-building, Evan Almighty is the sequel to the 2003 Jim Carrey hit, Bruce Almighty. With Carrey out of the picture, the baton has been passed to Steve Carell, whose newscaster, Evan Baxter, scored the first film's funniest scene - and who has of course gone on to become a big star in his own right, by way of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine.

Improbably, Baxter has traded in journalism for politics, and at the beginning of the movie he's taking up his seat in congress, moving in to a new suburban mansion, and making vain promises to spend more time with his kids. (Going in to politics to spend more time with your family - there's a twist!)

Evan's platform is to 'change the world'. That's it. But given that he drives a gas-guzzling SUV, hates dogs, and is uncomfortable with praying, it's obvious that the moviemakers mean him to change first.

He's quickly seduced by his impressively spacious office and the opportunity to co-sponsor a dodgy sounding bill framed by the powerful Congressman Long (John Goodman); something about developing national park lands. I guess our Evan hasn't seen Mr Smith Goes to Washington or he'd know that operators like Long are only in it for their own gain.

Then God (Morgan Freeman) puts in an appearance to explain why large quantities of timber have been stacking up on the front step of the Baxter residence. He has taken the congressman at his word, and requires him to build an ark for the forthcoming flood with his own two hands.

Initially skeptical, Evan realises what he's up against when his facial hair seems to take on a life of its own, animals start flocking to him, and the Lord swaps his business suit for the robes of a prophet in front of a House committee hearing.

Funny peculiar but coming up short in the ha-ha department, Evan Almighty plays less like a comedy than an allegory, an exorbitant family fable infused with the spirit of that new time religion, eco-evangelism.

Wanda Sykes has a couple of amusing one-liners as Evan's personal assistant, but Carell himself is all at sea; he's so persecuted as Evan he might as well be playing Jonah.

Even on its own terms (and obviously anything goes) it's bemusing that elephants, lions and orangutans should show up to watch the ark shape up in deepest, darkest Virginia� this has everything to do with studio executives panicking about audience expectations of a Noah movie and nothing whatsoever to do with a coherent story.

With a US box office bottoming out at a little under $100 million, Evan Almighty has been declared the summer's biggest dud. That's because director Tom Shadyac spent a ridiculous $160 million getting the film in the can. That moolah buys you a big boat, lots of doctored animal action, and an okay movie for eight-year olds.

Hard to credit God would go to such extravagant lengths for what turns out to be a tempest in a teapot - at least by Biblical standards - but it's further proof, as if it were needed, that the Lord moves in mighty mysterious ways.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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