GOD ALMIGHTY, WHY DID YOU LET THEM MAKE EVAN ALMIGHTY?
| Tom Shadyac | Director |
| Steve Oedekerk | Writer |
| Gary Barber | Producer |
| Roger Birnbaum | Producer |
| Michael Bostick | Producer |
| Steve Carell | Producer |
| Tom Hanks | Executive Producer |
| Ilona Herzberg | Executive Producer |
| Matt Luber | Executive Producer |
| Neal H. Moritz | Producer |
| Amanda Morgan Palmer | Associate Producer |
| Dave Phillips | Executive Producer |
| Tom Shadyac | Producer |
| Jonathan Watson | Associate Producer |
| Janet L. Wattles | Associate Producer |
| Jason Wilson | Associate Producer |
Somebody at Universal thought investing $175 million in a comic retelling of Noah’s Ark would result in a blockbuster summer sequel to BRUCE ALMIGHTY.
It didn’t.
The imdb-savvy reader knows EVAN ALMIGHTY grossed around $31 million on opening weekend but the precipitous drop-off (on word o’mouth?) in the four weeks since must have execs crossing fingers and whispering “Netflix”.
Let me save you the price of a future rental.
Neither fish nor fowl, neither sweetly kid/adult (like Shrek the Third) nor raucously hip and funny (like Knocked-Up), this big budget clunker chugs along on recycled jokes in between bouts of flat pratfalls.
I mean –how many times can you laugh at pigeon droppings? Yak spittle? (And trust me: EVAN ALMIGHTY puts these questions to the test.) And what gags do we have to look forward to in the story arc? PEOPLE!! THERE’S A FLOOD COMING! IT WILL DESTROY MOST OF MANKIND! Some punchline.
Worse still is the script’s systematic undermining of the usually winning charms of Steve Carrel. But as Evan Baxter, an anchorman turned politician turned ark builder, even Carrel's considerable comedy chops find absolutely nowhere truthful to take hold. EVAN ALMIGHTY is unfortunately what happens when an actor who needs to find ”the true” to find “the funny” finds neither.
Ultimately EVAN ALMIGHTY is what happens when a CGI-laden craft sinks all the (potential) humanity on board.
This movie is not the work of pikers. Steve Oedekirk. Joel Coen. Roger Birnbaum. Tom Shadyak are among the heavyweights involved. So how does a movie with such mega-watt talent tank on such an epicly perceptible scale?
Maybe, just maybe, because Noah’s ark is not an inherently laff-riot idea, and, maybe because no-one thought clearly or deeply enough about what kind of funny Noah’s Ark could be.
Just a thought?
This story turns on a man singled out for an act of faith and conscience and what it does to his relationships and how it changes the world forever. This is potentially a thoughtful idea, maybe even a pertinent, absorbing idea. And funny, potentially, in an emotionally engaging, conscience prodding way but -- gob-smack funny?
Breathing new comic life into Noah’s Character Arc was better left undone unless you wanted the comedy to have something truly illuminating to say about our world today... A script that truly developed (instead of paying lip service) to the relationships between Noah and his family members might have changed everything. The opportunity, for example, did exist for a likeable protagonist, a kind of Stewartesque Mr. Ark goes to Washington. A guy who’s lost his idealism, who likes animals and thinks we shouldn’t endanger them (or the planet) but who’s blithely ensconced (like most of us) in the bubble of his own personal comfort.
What would be wrong with creating a dimensional wife who’s grown a bit distant from a husband she once believed would accomplish great humanistic things? It might have made a thoughtful character to pressurize the story much further. God’s visit and the crisis it imposes on their marriage and family then becomes an opportunity to grow with plenty of room for intelligent laughs while still relating this faith crisis and it’s inherent opportunity to the lives of the audience who took two hours from their own complex lives to sit there.
In this proposed scenario, a Noah asked by God to take his armchair belief one step further into action, WOULD be risking everything. Not being up to the task? Not being the man his wife once believed? Yet he would act on Faith. Why? To do what he knows in his heart is right. To do the thing he comes to believe he is alive to do. To protect and serve the world he is only visiting.
That’s the challenge the Biblical Noah met. And what Faith asks is indelible courage. The kind of courage family members (ideally) give one another: the cohesion to help us face our toughest decisions.
It’s a theme well-treated in the movie FIELD OF DREAMS (I know – it’s a drama but it has a light-hearted spirit). It’s the surprising and touching relationship Kevin Costner has with the strong but simple wife played by Amy Madigan that ultimately gives him the personal power to do what he knows in his soul is right. It’s a film who’s plot turns on an act of faith by a man within a relationship and a family and it tells the story of their lives enriched by the crisis.
Why make a comedy who’s plot turns on something as delicate and deep as an issue of faith unless you are going to create characters with an interest in exploring what faith means to them?
The spine for a contemporary story about men and women raising families in unsettling times and the personal consciences we need in order to raise children who also develop consciences, was reachable in EVAN ALMIGHTY and without heavy-lifting. It required writing characters and respecting an audience’s intelligence. And it coulda been funny, guys.
I wasn't expecting art, ya know, but Hollywood used to make this kind of thoughtful comedy. Movies crafted slyly enough to make an audience consider living their own lives a little differently after viewing them. Capra made these movies. Sturges, too.
Might have involved sacrificing some yak spittle, but the talented filmmakers connected with Evan Almighty might similarly (and subtly) have reached their contemporary audience where it lives and breathes and strives for meaning. By developing Evan’s responsibility to his wife, family and the future, by creating an intelligent, contributing partner in his helpmate, Evan’s plight might have reflected the tough choices facing all modern Noahs and their families, adrift in a kind of boat of our own choices, on this increasingly fragile globe.
Note to Future Blockbuster Makers : There are some stories better left undone or done another way. There are movies that benefit richly from making the story of people’s humanity the real story told. Deepen relationships, infuse women's characters with humor and understanding (things that matter to women can be funny, too) and stop thinking laughs only come in extra-large. A movie that took to heart Noah’s family’s plight could have been easily as commercial and not as expensive to make. It might also have garnered those surprising accolades sequels like “Shrek 2” and “Shrek The Third” have managed...where the freshness of the comedy continues to evolve from characters we like, root for, and understand in situations that actually reflect real human feelings and values.