Evan Almighty

At some point in the opening scenes of this catastrophic sequel to Bruce Almighty, a dog sinks its teeth into Steve Carell's blameless testicles.

Oh dear. Is this going to be the sort of film that relies on cheap slapstick and vulgar scatology for its laughs?

If only. We have seen comedies that are more consistently irritating than this odd film. Any five minutes of, say, Norbit should generate more painful groans than the whole of Evan Almighty. But few supposedly comic films have demonstrated such scant enthusiasm for even trying to make us laugh. This may very well be the first mainstream comedy to feature no jokes whatsoever. Well, apart from the dog biting Steve's personal bits, that is.

Like its predecessor, the picture is built around a delightfully uncomplicated high concept. In Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey, a newscaster, was asked to spend some time being God. In Evan Almighty, Carell, once Bruce's nasty colleague, now a US congressman, is instructed to make like Noah and build an ark. Initially regarding Morgan Freeman, back on deity duties, as a lunatic, Evan changes his mind when pairs of animals begin following him round and his beard starts growing at an alarming rate.

Evan Almighty has, for reasons not entirely unconnected with its wretchedness, become a very important film. Costing somewhere in the region of $200 million, the picture is almost certainly the most expensive comedy ever made. Yet most of that money has been directed at the creation of shamefully ordinary special effects that do nothing whatsoever to increase the yucks. This would be akin to spending $200 million on The Matrix IV but devoting most of that cash to the development of song and dance numbers.

Achingly dull, Evan Almighty appears laden down with any number of tiresome agendas. It has an environmental theme. It seeks to appeal to those who take the Bible literally. Like every other contemporary comedy, it wants to muse upon the crisis in fatherhood. Nobody, however, appears to have felt the need to forward any agenda involving heads thrown back or the splitting of sides. There are more laughs in the Book of Ezekiel.