Evan Almighty
Evan Almighty | |
| Rated: | None |
| Director: | Tom Shadyac |
| Cast: | Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham, Johnny Simmons, Grahm Phillips, Wanda Sykes |
| Release Date: | 2007 |
| Genre: | Comedy, Camp |
It's a hard-knock life for newly-elected congressman Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), who--through no fault of his barber--fails to escape a predestined resemblance to Gandalf the Grey. Evan Almighty, follow-up to director Tom Shadyac's 2003 Bruce Almighty, tones down the naughty humor to pitch to seven-year-olds instead of 17-year-olds, with some success. After God (Morgan Freeman) orders the hapless Evan to build an ark instead of an electorate, he reluctantly complies, at great risk to his career and family life. The story doesn't get much more complicated than that, but the jokes are enough to keep the adults compliant (at one point Evan passes an adult movie theater featuring The 40 Year Old Virgin Mary) and the physical comedy is enough to keep the kids giggling. It's a fundamentally warm, fuzzy movie with a great many warm, fuzzy animals, but Carell's charisma goes a long way in carrying the humor, and his assistant Rita (Wanda Sykes) fires off dead-on jokes like an automatic rifle. Like the biblical tale inspiring it, Evan Almighty is less about making literal sense than it is about allegorical message, which proves to be simple enough: Faith isn't about solving your problems, it's about helping you solve them yourself.