>>REVIEW
EVAN ALMIGHTY
STARRING Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, John Goodman and Lauren Graham
DIRECTED BY Tom Shadyac
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The second instalment in the "Almighty" series, Evan Almighty sees the obnoxious news anchor Evan Baxter, from the widely successful Bruce Almighty, resume his role. This time, though, he’s the star of the show.
Having successfully transitioned from news anchoring to politics, Evan, played by the hilarious Steve Carell, is as pumped and annoying as any real government servant should be. When he moves to Virginia with this wife and three sons, Evan is surprised to find out that, even though he’s a new congressman, he gets a beautifully furnished, luxurious office, thanks to some help from Congressman Long, played by John Goodman. Long has hidden motives and is hoping that by giving Baxter the office, he might win his vote on a controversial land deal that he wants to pass.
Baxter is all geared up to "change the world," as his campaign so boldly declares, when a number of coincidences begin to cause trouble in his life. His alarm clock starts waking him up at 6:14 a.m., though he sets it to 7 a.m. His new phone extension is 614 and even his new licence plate reads GEN 614. All this points to the Bible – Genesis 6:14, the story of Noah and his ark.
Baxter’s beard and hair start to grow uncontrollably, compromising his clean-cut congressman looks. He tries hard to ignore the strange things happening to him, especially the wide variety of animals appearing out of nowhere and following him around. One visitor, however, is hard to ignore. God, played by the remarkable Morgan Freeman, visits Baxter, telling him to build an ark. While he hesitates at first, Evan ends up doing just that, much to the dismay of his wife. Joan, played by Lauren Graham, had hopes of the family getting closer, and is slightly put off by her husband’s preposterous sounding divine mandate.
While his coworkers and those on Capitol Hill think Evan’s gone nuts, and the media dubs him the "Noah from New York," he continues to build what ends up being a massive and quite impressive looking ark. His wife eventually warms up to Evan’s cause and she, along with his sons and a whole bunch of animals, help him complete the ark, which ends up coming in handy due to some unforeseen flood problems.
Although predictable, a bit juvenile and lacking in plot, Evan Almighty is a good-natured, positive movie about the importance of family and community that mixes the always-funny comedy of Steve Carell with a sweet story. |
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