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	Evan Almighty (PG) Directed by Tom Shadyac Review: Simon Parke This film is just like its lead, the newly-elected congressman Evan Baxter: they both want to change the world. Hollywood is suddenly into message, and Evan Almighty has one as big as a very large Ark. In his flag-waving, baby-kissing, people-hugging election drive, it has been Evan's constant slogan: "Change the world!" But before he goes any further, God is going to show him he needs first change himself, through prayer and obedience. God is also going to show him a huge number of wonderful animals. And, what terrible things happen when nasty businessmen get their hands on the environment. Roll up, roll up, Christians! Kiddies! And the environmentally concerned! So many marketing boxes ticked, the studio biro has run out of ink. Steve Carell plays the congressman who becomes a latter-day Noah, while Morgan Freeman does God. The producer says, "There's only one God, and there's only one Morgan." Is there also only one part? His role here is an exact repeat of the character he played in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves: quiet inner strength, with a slight twinkle in his eye. Here is a God who "hangs out", wears a loose-fitting white shirt, and can be kinda evangelical sometimes. When Evan first meets him in awkward conversation, he asks God, "Do I know you?" To which God replies, "Not as well as I'd like." At the end of the film, I sat waiting for a counsellor to ask if I wanted prayer. Yes, sure there are some great animal sequences in this film, and a powerful environmental finale – but let's not forget, kids: this is a film about your personal relationship with God. Oh, and your family. It's about families becoming closer. As the initially bemused wife of Evan says, "We got into this as a family – and we're going to get out of it as a family." In post-election excitement, Evan is often in front of the mirror, dealing with nasal hair. While there, he chants to himself the mantra necessary for all who would be congressmen or bishops: "Successful! Powerful! Handsome! And Happy!" He does want to change the world, but more than that, he so wants to be successful, and now he's on his way! Events intervene, however, just like the plagues did in Old Testament Egypt. And like Pharaoh before him, Evan is forced to change direction. It's a sort conversion – but too forced to be either virtue or faith. The animals are in twos, cute, and numerous. "It's Noah's Ark. You have to have lots of animals," says Tom Shadyac, who also directed the prequel, Bruce Almighty. "We have the most animals ever shot in a movie in show business history." The animal effects partly explain why this is the most expensive comedy ever. From the doves onwards, all creatures great and small look great and poo to comic order. If it truly is good luck to be shat on by a bird, then one or two characters are very lucky indeed. There is the inevitable Lion King moment. The scriptwriters in that movie faced the knotty problem of explaining how a lion can be truly loved by subjects whom he will shortly kill and eat. Cue "the circle of life" theme. In Evan Almighty, the problem is a God who loves the world so much that he gets angry and destroys it. It's love, captain, but not as we know it. Cue the film's restaurant scene. Taking the form of a humble waiter, a pastorally sensitive Morgan/God tells Evan's wife that the flood is a love story because in the Ark, they all sit "side by side". She is convinced. "And now I have other people to serve," says God, as he moves away. They say it's The Passion effect. Ever since Mel Gibson's film turned gospel into gold, the wings have become somewhat crowded by "church outing" films waiting to take their bow. There's a lot more of Narnia to come, and in Evan Almighty, the good guys are definitely cool with God. We are even given prayer advice. When you ask God for courage, does God give you courage, or an opportunity in which to be courageous? This is all very well, though really, what's the point? You wouldn't be asking for courage if you weren't in such a situation already. For the first half hour, Steve Carrel is a funny man with a funny face, who just wants a break. He is the small man caught up in forces quite beyond his control. He is trapped in the absurd world of American electioneering. He is wondering why his family aren't happier with everything, when surely everything's just great? And above all, he is finding himself depressingly intriguing to a wide variety of animals. This culminates in a lovely office aquarium scene, with the fish in the tank entirely obsessed with him. He dodges around the sofa to avoid their gaze. They dodge after him. And then of course the small man meets God, which is really the last thing he needs. Good stuff. But my last laugh was about half an hour in, when Evan finally becomes Noah. Here the story changes type, moving from observational comedy to morality tale. And the moral, sitting slightly uncomfortably with the flood, is this: changing the world starts with one Act of Random Kindness (or A.R.K., get it?). Steve Carell brings a sadness to his comedy, reminiscent of the excellent Bill Murray. All such subtlety stops, however, when he becomes the much-bearded Noah. From here on, he's a mere moral cipher, with all the facial possibilities of the man in the iron mask. Like so many religious people, he looks like a man trapped in a person who isn't truly him. Children will love the animal moments and the excitement of the flood. Adults will not be bored, not at all, but may leave the show with an identity problem. Satire, slapstick and sermons are all art forms – but different in nature and aspiration. Evan Almighty struggles to discern the difference, and emerges as three quite good films, instead of one really good one. Let's hope the next flood destroys all the marketing boxes.
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