Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007 12:00 am
LUKE GLOECKNER, Pulse Movie Reviewer
Moviegoers can't get enough of sequels these days and after the success of "Bruce Almighty" with Jim Carrey, it's no surprise we have been blessed with another installment to the saga. But "Evan Almighty" offers us an interesting situation: can a sequel succeed without the first movie's star?
Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell) leaves his job as a news anchorman after being elected congressman with his campaign promise of "change the world." His family moves into a new home, yet his wife (Lauren Graham) and kids are unhappy so they all decide to pray one night. Evan reluctantly makes a prayer too, asking God to help him change the world. It isn't long before Evan is given the opportunity to change the world when materials for an ark start arriving at his door and animals in pairs start following him to work. God (Morgan Freeman) soon visits him and presents him with the task of building an ark for an upcoming flood.
If you take out all of the things that Jim Carrey did in the first movie to make it hysterical and add in a teaspoon of morals and mix it together with the plot from "The Santa Clause," you end up with "Evan Almighty."
This is a movie that does not show off the strong points of Steve Carrell's comedy. Yet thankfully, Carrell still gets his times to shine every now and then, just not often enough. Wanda Sykes' cameo offers some funny moments as well. However, the comedy isn't consistent enough and only ends up bordering on moderately funny. The funniest part of the movie is reserved for the dancing done in the credits, which gives hope that the DVD might offer some fun tidbits.
"Evan Almighty" stays focused on the trials and tribulations of becoming an ancient Noah in a modern world. But if you're expecting a flood of laughs along with that, you might only get a light sprinkling of them instead. That doesn't make this a bad movie at all, in fact it is still quite entertaining, but it may not be the barrel of laughs some may expect coming into it.
{M3'Evan Almighty'
Starring: Steve Carrell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham
Director: Tom Shadyac
Run time: 95 minutes
Rated: PG for mild rude humor and some peril
Now playing at: College Square, Crossroads 12 and Waverly Palace
*** (out of *****)