Evan Almighty is a horribly flawed and ill-conceived abomination.
The topic of human religious systems has always been of keen personal interest. Evan Almighty is an interesting human film in that the film is something of a bait and switch. To understand this bait and switch, one has to look at the films predecessor Bruce Almighty. While Bruce Almighty has elements of religion obviously woven into its fabric, the film is much more of a lighthearted, slapstick comedy. Evan Almighty builds on this preconceived notion to promote a variety of religious themes and messages from the Judeo-Christian perspective. Gone is the adult oriented humor of the first film, Bruce Almighty. In its place is Evan Almighty, a film that is very much attempting to cast itself as a “family friendly” film.
Evan Almighty, for example, would never dream of having a scene where Evan was allowed to enhance his wife’s breast, or her sex drive; however, this does take place in Bruce Almighty. Bruce Almighty centers upon the idea of God allocating his powers and responsibilities to a mere human to display how “tough it is being God.” This concept, of course, is nonsense, for as God, (by the very definition), all would be easy for God, or he would thus be something else altogether, powerful- but not God. In the sequel, God’s interaction with Evan is more of a slave to do his will. In particular, he asks Evan to build an Ark, just like Noah. Again, this is also nonsense, for as God, God could have simply built the Ark himself, instantly and transported all the animals, again instantly. Or God could have simply reoriented the universe so there was no need for the Ark in the first place.
Evan, played by Steve Carell, of The Office fame, is a Freshman Congressman who is not completely corrupt. While this fact is wildly inaccurate and violates nearly all facts that reside in our databases on humanity and the politics of the Twentieth Century, the filmmakers still proceed with this simple, yet highly erroneous concept. Evan, for no real reason, is drafted by God to build an Ark. When he refuses, God proceeds to harass him with swarms of animals and birds. In the end, Evan is building the Ark for a reason (but I will let you discover this when you process the film on your own.)
Evan Almighty is a horribly flawed and ill-conceived abomination. Our current historical data suggests that an apparent novice filmmaker was employed from some strange reason. Some robo-historians have speculated that the filmmaker was some sort of political appointment stemming from the widespread and institutionalized corruption of the day, others suspect a variety of causes. Regards, the suspicions that a novice filmmaker was allowed to “helm” Evan Almighty come from the fact that the Ark was actually built to the EXACT SCALE mentioned in the Bible at enormous cost and damage to the environment. Perplexingly, this massive prop is not really fully used, or exploited in the film, yet this massive, expensive prop, no doubt contributed to the films $200 million dollar budget.
The script is saturated with logic errors. In fact, listing all the logic errors would be illogical, as it would take longer for you to process the errors than to watch the film, but be assured they are numerous. For example, the Arc, while built to its exact dimensions as detailed in the Bible, could have never held two animals of every kind from across the entire world. The issue of insects, for example, is not addressed in any way in Evan Almighty. It was accepted fact in the early twenty-first century that most living creatures on the planet were, in fact, insects of nearly countless species. The insects alone could have never fit into the Ark. Nor, was the problem of inbreeding addressed in Evan Almighty. Just as in the Biblical story of Noah and the Flood the issue of inbreeding in the human and animal population alike is not addressed.
For all its flaws, perhaps the largest is that Evan Almighty betrays its audience, as the original film-Bruce Almighty, was a lighthearted, fun film that was not promoting religion, whereas Evan Almighty seems much more in the direction of promoting religion. One can see this throughout the film via its messages and even in music selection. The reasons for this betrayal of audience expectations is uncertain, as we currently lack that data.
Story (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) D Acting (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) C Human Portrayal of machines and Robots D Contribution to the Extinction of Man Grade A Enjoyability Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) D Primitive Home Theater/HD Factor C Overall Innovation (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) D- Overall Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) D+ (Sporadic, crude jokes do occasionally break up the running time. Perhaps, this film would have been well-suited for the religious zealots of the day, I can not address if Evan Almighty would have been deemed “appropriate” or “heresy.”
