Carell and Freeman Keep Carrey-less Evan Almighty Afloat

Four years ago, I went to see Bruce Almighty on opening night, having been tipped off about it at a Don McLean concert in Buffalo the previous year. My interest was sufficiently piqued, and the movie didn't disappoint. So when I heard about the sequel, Evan Almighty, earlier this year, I was eager to check it out. Though the lack of Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston - who were asked to reprise their roles and declined - was potentially ominous, given the nature of the film it seemed plausible for a legitimate sequel to focus on an entirely different group of people, as long as God was still in the picture. With Morgan Freeman back on board, joined by Steve Carell and a huge assortment of animals, the film had promise. And then the reviews started rolling in, and I wondered whether this would be another of those disastrous sequels that would manage to sap life out of the original by mere association.

So I was pleasantly surprised to disagree with Richard Roeper and a host of other critics. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough, but I found Evan Almighty thoroughly enjoyable, starting with the previews, which not only announced VeggieTales' second big screen adventure but also gave me a Dick King-Smith adaptation about the Loch Ness Monster to look forward to. These family-friendly previews gave me a good sense of what sort of movie we were about to see. While Bruce Almighty was primarily aimed at adults, with a fair share of rather raunchy humor, the PG-rated Evan Almighty has much more in common with old school live action Disney flicks than contemporary comedies. The genre shift could be jarring to some, but Freeman's performance is consistent throughout the two films, tying them together.

Less consistent is Carell as Evan Baxter, the narcissistic newsman who was Bruce's rival in the original; while he comes across as a bit self-absorbed, particularly in the beginning, he soon becomes sympathetic, just an overworked guy trying to make a difference in the world but leaving his family behind in the process. I'm willing to overlook it, though, particularly since our perception of him in the first film was probably skewed by the fact that we were seeing him as Bruce was. Some of the humor in the sequel comes from the fact that Evan is an immaculately groomed neat freak who suddenly has an unshavable beard, much like Scott Calvin in The Santa Clause, and a wild assortment of animals following him around. The almost Hitchcock-esque sequences in which he is tailed by dozens of pairs of birds are among the most entertaining in the film. Once he accepts all the not-so-subtle hints, the animals become a welcome rather than oppressive presence and even manage to aid him in his divinely appointed task of building an ark.

On the home front, Evan has to deal with his wife Joan (Lauren Graham), who first chides him for being an inattentive dad and later for apparently cracking up. It does seem a little odd that the people who live with Evan would not find anything amiss in the fact that a week's worth of beard has appeared overnight, but even when Evan tells Joan about his meeting with God, she remains convinced that the hair, the boat and even the animals that seem magnetically drawn to Evan constitute some sort of massive mid-life crisis. Meanwhile, his sons - Dylan (Johnny Simmons), Jordan (Graham Phillips), and Animal Planet-addicted Ryan (Jimmy Bennett) - prefer the new Evan, since he's around a lot more.

In his new role as congressman, Evan has three close advisors: the sassy Rita (Wanda Sykes), anxious Marty (John Michael Higgins) and excessively admiring Eugene (Jonah Hill). They soon have more than they bargained for in presenting a positive image of Evan to the press, which hungrily fixates on his increasingly bizarre antics. He also has an unexpected ally, Congressman Long (John Goodman), a fat cat who happens to be Evan's neighbor in the fancy new development where he recently moved his family. This alliance quickly turns sour as it becomes clear the corrupt congressman intends to bribe and cajole the rookie into helping him pass through a bill that will allow him to develop peripheral national park lands. Goodman makes a great villain along the lines of Alonzo Hawk, the despicable developer who graced several Disney films in the 60s and 70s.

When we get wind of the piece of legislation he wants Evan to sign, its ecological bent is no surprise; the film drives home Evan's reckless consumerism early on, from his massive, gas-guzzling hummer to a conversation he has with the man building the cabinets in his new home in which he cheerfully chooses wood made from old growth trees. Stewardship of the environment forms a strong undercurrent for the story, most effectively illustrated when God shows Evan how the valley in which he lives used to look before it became a victim of urban sprawl. The other main message of the film is to treasure one's family and, more generally, to never miss an opportunity to perform an "Act of Random Kindness".

Watching the movie, I was reminded of several of director Tom Shadyac's previous films. Like Ace Ventura it concerns itself with the well-being of animals, and with so many of them on screen at once, it's sure to attract animal lovers of all ages. Like Liar, Liar, it involves a dad who's too wrapped up in his career to make time for his family. Like Patch Adams, it focuses on the importance of making life better for individuals. And, of course, like Bruce Almighty, it depicts God as compassionate and involved in our lives. Shadyac is a devout Christian attempting to bring his sensibilities to the big screen, and he succeeds in this aim especially well here. While putting words in God's mouth always runs the risk of blasphemy, Shadyac's motivation is sincere, and Freeman's gentle but insistent portrayal commands respect.

I read that Evan Almighty is the most expensive comedy ever made. While I enjoyed the film very much, I find that categorization a little strange, since comedy really wasn't the focus of this movie. There's the unfortunate barrage of defecation, particularly of the avian variety, which I suppose is hard to resist when you've got hundreds of animals and you're trying to get a laugh out of a PG crowd; thankfully, that's about the only crude humor to be found in the movie. Most of the amusing moments are visual, such as God appearing as several passersby while trying to convince Evan to build the ark or a pair of primates downing lemonade with Evan on a break from pounding boards. There's a running joke involving a silly dance that Evan does, and much as Bruce kept seeing the same mysterious phone number repeatedly, our hero can't escape the number 614, a reference to Genesis 6:14, in which Noah is commanded to build the ark. Evan's realtor (Molly Shannon) is named Eve Adams, while a movie theater marquee he passes reads The 40-Year-Old Virgin Mary. It's a funny enough movie, but it's really more of a feel-good film the whole family can enjoy together, which in a too frequently cynical age may be even better.