Evan Almighty? Bruce Almighty Sequel WITHOUT Jim Carrey (1 Viewer)

[Brent M]

I agree on both counts.

40 Year Old Virgin and The Office are two of the greatest things to happen comedy-wise in the past decade IMHO, but I can see Evan Almighty having disaster written all over it. I can guarantee it will be PG-13 which is already a strike against it in my book because it means the flick will have to play it "safe" to satisfy the studio's bottom line. Besides, I just don't see the point of a sequel to the first flick. I know Hollywood is looking for another role that showcases Carell, but hell if they're gonna do that I'd rather see him reprise his role from Anchorman.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Saw an early screening of "Evan Almighty" tonight.

Overall, it's a pretty benign film, with Carell doing some funny physical comedy as he struggles to deal with God wanting him to build an ark. Wanda Sykes gets most of the quick quips for laughs. The 1st act is a little stiff, but once God enters the picture, it finds its legs and is paced well all the way to its concluding act. The film is a little predictable, but it's a film that you can take the whole family to go see without being subjected to gory or extreme violence if that's a concern.

I don't think Carell outdid Carrey in the lead character department (compared to Bruce Almighty), but Carell does carry the film on his shoulders (though, it's a lightweight comedy with some underlying familial bonding through ark construction).

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

 

[buttmunker]

Think of it this way:

Oh! God starred George Burns as God, and John Denver.
Oh! God, Book II starred George Burns as God, and someone else.

John Denver's story was completed in the first movie. The sequel required a new character.

Same thing with this series.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Do they have any explanation for why the weatherman is suddenly in congress?

 

[Brent M]

I think he was a weatherman in Anchorman and a reporter/anchor in Bruce Almighty.........not that it would really make a difference in explaining his ascent to Congress.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

At "Knocked Out" tonight, the trailer got a very negative reaction. It would have been a stretch had Bruce built the arc — and he at least had prior training! As it stands now, it feels purely like a quick cash in.

 

[Stephen Orr]

I believe I am going to a sneak of this on Tuesday, sponsored by gracehill.com for ministry folks and pastors....

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

True - sorry, silly mistake.

 

[Rob W]

If actors and wrestlers can get elected, why is it so hard to imagine that an anchorman could end up in Congress ? : )

 

[Chris]

I laughed a little about "it's PG-13 which will be a strike against it.." Uh, I think the reverse. If they could have made this PG, then they'd open the doors to a whole different audience. This is a morality tale movie which is hoping to do well amongst the same crowd that embraces Veggie Tales, many Animated Features, Passion of the Christ. You've got a telling of God asking someone to do something with their life. If this was R rated, the only thing you'd guarantee is that you'd have a lot of protests and people who would say "how can you take this and..."

This same director went out of his way with Bruce Almighty to do interviews with Church groups and others about the kind of message he wanted to send.

The previews have made me chuckle, but I don't know if it's a must see.

 

[Chris]

I look at my post above, and now having seen the film, I have to say: this film may be the greatest misunderstanding of viewers who have a religious outlook of any films I've ever seen.

I am NOT a religious person (proud agnostic, thank you) but I have a lot of sympathy and friendship with many who are good practitioners and I grew up rural Catholic. I've praised here films that I thought do an effective job of portraying a religious viewpoint and their stick-to-it-ness. As an example, I have praised "Jonah and the Whale" a VeggieTales Movie, as original and unique. I respected the filmmaking of "The Passion" as a film that reached out to many in that community.

Even simple morality tales like "Oh God!" and "Bruce Almighty" were family-fare with good laughs and a decent hearted story.

Evan Almighty screams all the way through that "please, this is a studio's attempt to get Christians into the theater, we don't know much about this stuff but..." and it comes off in such a poor way that I can't think of anyone who would call themselves at all religious looking at this and thinking this in any way a representation of anything they think.

The heart of the story is that Evan is representing God basically to stop corrupt government environmental projects. At one point, the story gets so muddled that God, played well by Morgan Freeman, delivers a speech where he contends that the story of Noah is a love story of sorts... pardoning the fact that everyone else in the story was killed for their disloyalty (that gets overlooked).

In fact, the story devolves so badly by it's second act that not only is it not funny, but it breaks down into bumpersticker religion catchphrases "Be Good!" "Practice Random Acts of Kindness". And so forth.

The end features some great special effects that makes you wonder:

If there is a flood big enough to float the damn ark, why the hell aren't people dying, drowning or at least standing on their houses trying to be saved.. in fact, the water just kind of dissappears and who knows wtf just happened..

I think this movie is a studio saying "we'll slap a label on it, market it to churches, and it'll be a hit, just like "The Passion" " Well, here's the reality on that: church groups may go to some extent, but unless they feel like it's important or the filmmaking is good, it will die.

Evan Almighty was something I thought could be cute a month or two ago.. as it's release came closer, and I was able to catch more, I had doubts. Having seen it, let me say this:

Fundamentalist or Evangelicals or whatever find the heart of their message far better spelled out in "KNOCKED UP" then "Evan Almighty". Let me repeat that again: "KNOCKED UP" is a far more "wholesome" film about their view on family values then "Evan Almighty" is.

Think about that.

 

[Malcolm R]

Most would never agree, though, because of the [whisper] dirty s-e-x stuff [/whisper] in KO. Sex = Evil, after all.

 

[Chris]

Think about it though:

Knocked Up is a story about a girl finding herself unexpectantly pregant who, in face of peer pressure to "fix the situation" has a child, and the movie goes to great lengths to show early sonograms and advocate accountability.

Meanwhile, Evan Almighty is a film where a guy who continually doubts God's purpose has to be continually shown miracles in order to believe (and come on, how hard is it to have faith if God keeps showing up all the time?) and then distorts biblical stories in a rather strange way while at the same time coming up with it's own weird catch phrases.

Yeah, I'm sure the radical-right won't see it that way, but Knocked-Up gets the message they want to get across about issues they keep hammering on far better then EA.

And with that, I'll drop it because this could become political.

 

[todd s]

Any movie that has monkey's with funny butts drinking lemonade...can't be all that bad.


Would have been funny if Jim Carrey could have made a quick cameo. For example when the news gets out about NY Noah. Saying something about God must be dealing with Evan.

Although, I did like one idea from the movie. When Al Mighty is talking to Evan's wife. He was saying if people pray for something. Does god give it to them or does he give them an opportunity for it. I like that idea.

 

[Jeffery_H]

Being a Christian and someone proudly religious willing to say they are glad to be so, I think this movie is VERY good. People that say things like some posters like "radical-right" are NOT the people this film targets and frankly could care less about. In fact, it's quite offensive being a Christian and a STRONG conservative on the religious right that is offensive to read ignorant comments as such. I could go on and on about the downfall of society and the "secular progressive" types compared to traditionalist values, but that's not the intent. Only that a film like this is GREAT for those of us sick and tired of the hollywood trash those types of people typically put out.

It's a film a lot of churches are buying bulk tickets for and a must see for good clean entertainment.