Starring: Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham, John Goodman, Wanda Sykes, John Michael Higgins Jonah Hill, Molly Shannon

Directed by: Tom Shadyac

Universal Pictures - Official Site of the Movie

Discuss Evan Almighty on the boards!

As we left for the theater on Friday night to see Evan Almighty, the sequel to the wildly successful Bruce Almighty, I turned to my wife and asked, “Are we even excited about this?� I wasn’t. At least not as much as I should have been. Evan has been touted for months as one of the projected comedy cornerstones of 2007. There’s no reason not to expect it to be with the return of Bruce’s director Tom Shadyac who’s work is polished like plastic but generally worth a few solid laughs, as well as an impressive comedic cast led by Steve Carell who’s streak is hotter than any comedian in Hollywood right now.

But as a shuffled my feet the 8 blocks from my house to the theater, wondering more about what I would eat for dinner than what I would have to look forward to in the film, I couldn’t manage to muster the slightest bit of excitement for Evan. I think in part because of how luke-warm Bruce Almighty left me. That movie is funny as hell but dreadfully long and overly preachy. Evan would more than likely be more of the same. Except with the edition of children and animals, which of course means an influx of dumbed-down family humor. Sure enough, before the opening credits are over the entire family has prayed together, and Evan has had a dog’s snout in his crotch. I settled on the chicken.

In the film, Carell as Evan is approached by God and put with the challenge of building an ark. A task that has animals flocking to him and his hair growing endlessly. Something that obviously disrupts every aspect of his life from his brand new Congressional career to his fragile but loving family life, but in the long run makes him (and the audience!) a better person (people!). God is played again by Morgan Freeman who is just perfect in the part. It’s like God is your Grandpa, even if he is telling you that he’s going to obliterate everything you know with water. Thanks for the heads up Grandpa. Seriously, Freeman brings such a great quality to the role. I thought to myself during his performance that if God were to ask me to build a boat - I would probably do it. But if Morgan Freeman asked me to build a boat I would say, “how big and what should I wear.�

Though Evan speaks to God directly on numerous occasions, the screenwriter’s wisely avoided too many direct connections to spirituality. Evan’s motivation to build the ark is about faith, but it’s just as much about being a good person and not stressing out about what you think is important. Those are universal themes that even non-Christians can relate too. Bruce Almighty was overrun with direct references not just to faith in general but Christianity specifically, and it came off judgmental at the same time as it ostracized anyone with a conflicting faith. Probably not such a big deal considering Bruce broke the 200 million dollar mark after a 60 million dollar opening (Evan barely cracked half of that in the past weekend), but even as someone who believes what they’re preaching, I appreciated Evan’s more universal approach.

Unfortunately, while they were trimming out the direct references to Christianity they also managed to crop out the big laughs we were expecting. Don’t get me wrong… there are plenty of funny, subtle moments in the film that will have you laughing out loud, but not nearly on the scale as the films predecessor. Off the top of my head I could name for you five scenes in Bruce Almighty that are classic comedy moments, but to do the same for Evan is a bit of stretch. Obviously the stars have a very different approach to the way they work but I’m talking about big classic moments that Steve has showed us before like the wax removal in The 40-Year Old-Virgin and the possession scene in Bruce Almighty. Those are classic moments in modern comedy. But with Evan all we get is beard gags and bird poop. It’s cute, I giggled, I’m not complaining, but who does Jesus have to raise from the dead for us to get a really well scripted scene of situational comedy?

The scripts lackluster broad comedy is saved by a great cast (Carell included) who prove that a well delivered line can make up for the lack of a humorously scripted scenario any day of the week. Wanda Sykes (who I like but have never loved as much as everyone else in the world seems to) plays Evan’s assistant and lays out one zinger after another with the majority of them hitting their mark. The rest of his congressional team including two improve super studs in Jonah Hill and John Michael Higgens round out a deadly foursome who will have you hooting every time they're together. As much as I missed some larger, crowd roaring jokes, it was really cool to see dialogue and performance get spotlighted in a film like this. Even if I was the only one laughing.

But laughs are to be expected. What’s less expected is how seriously this movie treats its conflicts. When Evan is forced to admit to the world that he’s building an ark he’s dubbed as crazy, mocked openly, suspended from his job, and abandoned by his family in a heartbreaking scene where no one wins. Had they not made the consequences so severe, Evan’s decision to build the ark would have been less significant. With everything on the line the strength of the story and the character all jump up a notch. A lot of credit to Carell who was able to carry both ends of the character as well as John Goodman as Evan’s adversary and Graham as Evan’s wife, who have to switch from clever quips to serious life lessons at the drop of a hat. Or the growth of a beard, as it were. Graham pleading for the return of her husband will tear you up inside and it’s important that it does, because we need that to care about what happens to Evan. Other wise he really is just some crazy guy building a boat.

A lot has been made about the movies inflated production and excessive costs. I don’t really want to get into it other than saying, there’s a lot of money on the screen. The flood sequence is beautiful. Very impressive, even by today’s standards. Plus there’s a lot of animal work, which is notoriously difficult and expensive. Do you think it’s cheap to get a lama to hold a hammer in his mouth or spit on cue?

And of course there is a massive life lesson at the end of the film. A few actually, but even though they’re pretty universally “Be Good� sort of messages, I suspect they won’t hit their mark with everyone. Evan dangerously teeters between corny and credible when it comes to driving the final points home, and unless you have anything invested with the characters, your eyes will roll 4 rows back. The best example I can give you of this is: When asked why God choose him, Evan replies, “He chose all of us.� A little sappy, granted, but I was with them. The story had hooked me. But had I not been invested at all, that line would have been the funniest bit in the whole film.

Evan Almighty won’t change your life, though it will try. It won’t make you pee your pants with laughter, but it will try. But what it will do though is keep you entertained and amused for a couple of hours, and make your have to decide what you want for dinner on the spot.

Rating: 6 out of 10 - Evan Almighty is worth waiting for I think. It’s cute, fun and non-offensive, but 11 bucks times two if you’re on a date might feel like a bit much. Go see Knocked Up again and wait for the beard and birdie show when it’s released on DVD.

Nah, not for me. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie but I can’t figure out if my fondness of the film after the fact has more to do with it being “genuinely good� or it just “not as bad as I expected it to be�. Evan Almighty should be bad, it’s a dangerous formula, and I’m afraid that if I buy it on DVD and watch it a couple of times, I might realize that it is awful after all. How many times can Evan’s warm and fuzzy message play before it starts to feel forced and sugar sweet. For most people I’m sure, the first go ‘round was enough.

Bruce Almighty - In an interview for Evan Almighty with the E Network of all places, I heard director Tom Shadyac say that he likes to find what it is each performer does best and play the movie to those strengths. With Jim Carrey, he’s funniest when he’s doing stuff to other people. That’s part of the reason his “gone mad with power� scenes in Bruce are some of the funniest he’s ever done. With Carell, Shadyac explained that audiences respond better when things are being done to him. The best example of this is the scene in Bruce where Carrey posses Carell live on air. It’s actually the perfect meeting of the two comedians at their best, according to Shadyac.

I’m not sure how much there is to his theory, but he seems to be on to something. I’m not even sure if it’s fair to compare the two movies with each other at all though. Each movie stands on its own even with crossover cast and crew as well as similar themes and target audiences. But they’re very different films. Evan is safe and a little predictable. Bruce is a little riskier and inventive. At the same time Bruce meanders and looses my attention, while Evan’s brisk pace and quite charm keep me engaged. In a lot of ways it’s a toss up, but in the long run I’d rather laugh my ass off, and I would give that prize to Carrey as Bruce.

Ok, this isn’t as random as you might think. Today’s strip features Jesutron, a character that first appeared in the strip for The Da Vinci Code and who later showed up in The Omen. I love the character but it’s very difficult to reintroduce him and not alienate new readers. Honestly, how do you explain that suddenly Jesus is a Transformer?

Many of you may remember that Jesutron was an airplane transformer, in fact even in his robot form I designed a lot of his parts around Starscream, but in this latest incarnation, he’s a boat. I admit that it’s not something I wanted to do. It creates another aspect of an already confusing character that needs to be explained. I almost introduced an all-new Disciplecon called Arkbot. But in the end I didn’t want to get rid of the “But you are a boat!� line. Ask Yeo, I kept saying it over and over again the other night. Besides, he’s the Son of God, is he not allowed to be one of those triple transformer deals?

Yeo has Harry Potter fever. I do as well to an extent, but it’s not nearly as life threatening as Yeo. I was reading through the series, and she decided she would give it a shot to. She read about 20 pages of Chamber of Secrets before she got bored reliving the movie and jumped on to Azkaban. From there she tore on through Goblet of Fire and came to the conclusion that she didn’t care if she hadn’t seen the movie yet – she was going to read Order of the Phoenix. Her exact words were, “I want to be that person that nit picks the movie.� To which I replied, “Oh, you mean ‘A Jerk’?�.

When Goblet of Fire was originally released in theatres I did DVD reviews on the previous three movies, and in one of them, an angry mother tells Dumbledore to kiss her muggle ass . Fan reaction was great and we decided to do a limited T-shirt run.

We had always said that it was a one-time thing, but Phil and I got to talking and realized that with the release of the seventh book and the fifth movie next month, it might be a nice time to do a second run. People have asked me throughout the last year if the shirts would ever be printed again and the answer was always “no.� But the stars have lined up and it feels like a good time to break it out of the vault. I admit – part of the reason to do this is money. These things will sell well at the conventions and it’ll build a nice little nest egg for a JLCM collection, something I would love to see debut next year at New York Comic Con.

But the bottom line is… the Kiss My Muggle Ass shirts are back, and available to order! But like last time this is a limited time offer. After a brief preorder period these babies will be put it back in the Disney vault or whatever our equivalent to that is. So Preorder now, and up until July 13th. Don’t miss this opportunity to offend and confuse old people.

Oh, and don’t forget to tune in tonight and listen to the Triple Feature. We missed last week so there will be plenty to catch up on tonight!