Evan Help Us.

Evan Almighty - 2/5

Bruce Almighty was something of a surprisingly big hit in 2003, in part due to being slightly funnier and a whole lot less blasphemous and offensive than expected, thus managing to win over the American Bible belt. It was an OK film, not a classic by any means, but certainly funny enough to be watchable - Evan is a sequel of sorts, with minor character Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell) taking centre stage and Jim Carrey being totally absent. Depending how you view Mr Carrey this may be a good thing or a bad thing. This has been made possibly by Carrell's rise to the A-list since Bruce was made, with hits like The 40 Year Old Virgin and the American version of The Office. Carrell now has to carry the most expensive comedy ever made, with a budget somewhere north of $170 million.

Evan has moved from newsreader to congressman, but his rise to power is somewhat derailed when God shows up and tells him to build an ark, because there's a flood coming. Which isn't the worst set up for a comedy that there's ever been.

The first thing to say is that it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting it to be from the reviews I'd read. It had a few funny moments - like Evan addressing the House Committee with an unintended costume change. There are also some clever and amusing touches, like a cinema showing a nice variation on one of Carrell's earlier hits. Unfortunately these moments are too few and far between. Carrell is a more restrained performer than Carrey and tries his best, but can't do much with the limited material.

The expensive effects are hit and miss - the flood is not really convincing. They go for volume and variety with the animals, but fail to really use any of them effectively apart from having the birds repeatedly crap on people, which stops being funny long before it starts. The other characters are weak 2-dimensional stereotypes - from John Goodman's evil money-grabbing congressman to Wanda Sykes sassy black-woman assistant who seems to be there to hammer home every point or joke with a sledgehammer sarcastic comment.

The so-called environmental message is as weak and flimsy as the political conspiracy around exploiting national parks for profit - its all so simplistic and so seen-it-all-before-and-better. In fact, you could argue that what the film ultimately says is that its OK to ruin the environment as long as you don't cut corners and compromise health and safety whilst doing so. The other message of the film - that its important to spend time with your family, is all a bit twee. Even then there's no real sense of character development or moment of revelation, more Evan being forced into things. And the suggestion that the biblical flood was about giving Noah the opportunity to spend time with the family is just way off beam.

Appropriately enough, the film's main redeem,ing feature is Morgan Freeman, returning in twinkle-eyed form as God. He livens up proceedings no end, whenever he appears (which isn't often enough) and grabs the vast majority of the best lines.

All in all, this isn't offensive to anybody's sensibilities, but neither is it funny or engaging. Proof that bigger isn't always better. If you do feel like something from the rather curious sub-genre of religious comedy, I'd save your ticket money and go rent Saved on DVD, which is far more offensive to religious sensibilities, but a much better film and at the end of the day more meaningful.