June 21, 2007 - Why is it that "family movie" is often times a euphemism for abject stupidity? Based on Pixar's output alone, audiences know that moviemakers are capable of more intelligent family-friendly storytelling. But recent movies like Bridge to Terabithia have further suggested that CGI characters are not always the best or only way to reveal deeper human truths.

Evan Almighty is the latest, terrible family film, and a chronicle of the reductive way in which mainstream comedy directors seem to inevitably lose their edge (see the Farrelly Brothers for further examples). Born from the success of Jim Carrey's Tom Shadyac (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) collaboration Bruce Almighty, and apparently the revelation that people who go to church also go to the movie theater (thanks, Passion of the Christ), Evan seeks to follow in its predecessor's holy footsteps, except that rather than audiences seeing two sets in the sand per the famous Christian parable, there's only one -- and it sure as hell isn't God's.

Personally, I would have settled for Carrey's, whose manic style is all over this movie -- from its "hilarious" montages of self-inflicted pain to the general disintegration of Evan Baxter's (Steve Carell) mental stability. The difference, of course, is that the once and future Ace Ventura somehow creates feeling out of all that craziness, acting out his intellectual and emotional turmoil in a way that is at once heartbreaking and hysterical (his Niagara-Falls freakout in the first Almighty movie is seriously among the most moving moments in all of Carrey's career). Carell, on the other hand, is primarily a reactor or at the very least not a physical comedian, so watching him adopt Biblical gravitas after enduring God's (Morgan Freeman) harassing instruction to build an Ark doesn't quite fall into the same realm of comic inspiration.

The plot, so to speak, takes place four years after Bruce Almighty, with Evan taking office as a Congressman. (One can't help but wonder how his own on-camera breakdown in the first film might have affected his public image, not to mention how his job as anchorman might have violated equal-time campaign laws). Moving to a D.C. suburb with his wife Joan (Lauren Graham) and three boys, Evan arrives in Washington stocked with a dutiful staff (played by Wanda Sykes, John Michael Higgins and Jonah Hill), but soon discovers that hard work is not necessarily the key to success in politics.

In particular, Evan finds himself aligned with Congressman Long (John Goodman), who offers him untold opportunities if he'll only back a bill he's trying to get passed. Before he can successfully acclimate to D.C.'s atmosphere of complex political associations, however, Evan gets a visit from God, who tells him to build an Ark because a flood is supposedly coming.

The greatest crime the film perpetrates is populating its cast with so many talented people and then giving them the wrong thing, or worse, nothing to do. Carell's Evan in Bruce Almighty was a preening self-promoter, but here he's a classically overworked but otherwise loveable dad who shares none of the earlier arrogance that would have made his transformation into "a better person" that much more dynamic. As Evan's wife, Graham regurgitates plot details and offers furrowed-brow concern but little else. Particularly now that Gilmore Girls is permanently off the air, it would be a shame to see Graham disappear from the public consciousness except in thankless supporting roles like this one. And the in-office trifecta of Sykes, Higgins and Hill is almost completely unutilized, except as a peanut gallery for the various changes in Evan's behavior and physical appearance.