Steve Carrell picks up his role from this film’s predecessor, Bruce Almighty. Evan has the misfortune of retaining Bruce’s director (Tom Shadyac) as well, which is unfortunate. Shadyac’s claim to fame is to provide Jim Carrey with his best-known vehicle, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. However, without Carry’s rubber-faced antics, his direction, and the movie as a whole, seems a bit lackluster.

Enter Industrial Light and Magic with their jaw-dropping flood sequence. Oh, yikes. I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Silly me.
Evan Almighty begins with Evan Baxter somehow winning a congressional race with the worst campaign dialogue in history: “Change the world.” Naturally, such a directive is going to need a little divine influence. Morgan Freeman once again portrays a version of God who has little to do than influence animals to flock toward poor Evan.

Thankfully, there aren’t any enlarged breast gags or dogs that pee into a toilet in this film. Instead, we have birds their drop their excrement for humor. I guess such scatological humor has to be used in some form, right? How divine.

Of course, there’s plenty to like about Evan Almighty. The story is a fun idea. After all, how neat would it be to have five or six subdivision lots paid for and plenty of gopher wood delivered at your doorstep? It’s all part of the premise. God starts off subtle (which is pretty true to life, if you ask me) with repetitive hints. The subtlety wears off after a while, and even the audience will eventually get tired of seeing GEN 6:14 everywhere.

In the end, Evan Almighty is never able to rise above what is essentially a flood of bland mediocrity. I’ve seen a few Christian pastors who said they recommended this film for their churches, but for the life of me I have no idea why. Sure, it’s good, clean family fun, but does that mean it has to be so lame?

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