When I went to see the midnight openings of the most recent films at our local theatre, Evan Almighty was my second choice, mostly because it's school holidays and despite a city-wide late night curfew for people under the age of eighteen, Evan was flooded with a gaggle of noisy teens. I decided on 1408 that night and left my Evan experience till the Monday following the weekend.

I'll begin this review by saying I wasn't a huge fan of Bruce Almighty, the movie to which this is the sequel. Oh it was fine enough to watch on TV, I even think I have seen it a couple of times, but there's something about Jim Carrey's acting that means a movie has to be just right for me to enjoy him in it. I loved The Truman Show and Liar Liar, but popular hits like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective left me mystified as to their appeal. It's not that Bruce was a bad film, there was a lot to like about it, but I found it a little uneven and to be a bit of a one-trick pony, sort of like a less sophomoric, updated version of Zapped! with neater tricks.

Since his performances in such films as Anchor Man: The Legend of Ron Burgandy, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine I have been a big fan of Steve Carell and the trailers made this look like fun. I wasn't disappointed, quite the contrary, I was pleasantly surprised.

Evan Almighty as we all know from the trailer is the tale of Carell's Evan, a news anchor man who is retiring to take up his elected position in the US congress. Evan rode to power under the banner of "changing the world", but despite the best of intentions he doesn't really have much any realistic idea or even plans on how to accomplish this. In fact, the new congressman soon finds himself being used as a naive pawn to help pass a nefarious piece of legislation which is decidedly unfriendly to the world Evan so hopes to have a positive impact on. Of course, life in politics and family life with three sons and long-suffering wife take a bit of a hit, when God, yes the man himself, begins to prod a beseeching, aimless Evan inexorably towards the construction of an Ark in preparation for a deluge which is apparently due on September 22nd around lunchtime.

I said I was pleasantly pleased by the film, one of the reasons is that throughout the use of juvenile slapstick is largely avoided. I was expecting a lot of this, with zany situation after zany situation causing our hero to freak out, but other than a musical interlude depicting the construction of the ark where Evan's extremities take a repeated pounding and the occasional dog going for the groin, there's basically a minimum of stooging about. In fact, there's a lot of subtle, dryly amusing humour, such as Evan's quest through the fridge for unleavened bread as he begins his transformation into a latter day Noah. While there are literally hundreds of animals in the film, crazy animal humour is also kept to a minimum. There's a lot of amusing animal humour, but other than a few bits of monkeys jumping excitedly and an alpaca spitting on the villain, the "stock animal humour handbook" is largely kept closed which was excellent.

Carell is great fun as Evan and largely carries the movie on his own. The trio of kids is fine without ever becoming nauseating and the wife played by Lauren Graham does a fair job as the wife, as Terri Garr's role from Close Encounters of the Third Kind is dusted off yet again to be inserted as the token family tension. There's also minimalist appearances by John Goodman as the baddie and John Michael Higgins (who I have always enjoyed in Christopher Guest's mockumentaries) as a political advisor to Evan.

I don't usually bother mentioning the soundtrack in a movie that isn't specifically a musical, but I rather enjoyed this one. It isn't exactly inspired, rather obvious actually, but Creedence Clearwater Revival's Who'll Stop the Rain? was a nice turn at the opening and ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man really made the scene in which it appears.

All in all Evan Almighty is a fantastic family comedy, well worth the price of admission to the cinema. Sure, you wont be rolling in the aisles clutching your sides, but the grins are pretty much constant. There's no tedious dragging out of things like "intrigue in congress" and other such things - hey, we all know it's going to work out and the bad guy will get his comeuppance - and the movie is paced nicely. If you are looking for a crazy, wacky comedy you might be disappointed, but if you just want to feel good, smile a hell of a lot and be entertained and amused you would be well advised to board this ark for a deluge of fun.




Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: Feel-good Movie
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing