We'll watch Steve Carell in just about anything. We love him on The Office and The 40 Year-Old Virgin is one of the greatest comedies of the last decade. We, in our past life as a movie reviewer, even once watched him as Officer Sherman in the excerable Sleepover.
But we won't be seeing Evan Almighty, even if it is Carell's first big-budget starring vehicle and the most expensive comedy ever made. Fist, it's rated PG. We can't remember the last time we left the theater after viewing a PG-rated movie and didn't want our money back. Second, why does the sequel to a so-so comedy have to be so friggin' expensive? Comedy is a low-budget art. Always has been, always will be. Lastly, why is Carell's character now a congressman? We hate sequels that are sequels in name only.
And we're not alone. Here's a small sampling of what the nation's critics are saying about the latest summer fuckplant dropped on our heads:
"You know what "Evan Almighty" needs? Jokes. That's what it doesn't have."
- Chicago Tribune
"If there is one thing this Old Testament comedy is, it's seriously devout. Also seriously unfunny."
- San Jose Mercury News
"As summer comedies go, Evan isn't heaven sent. It's just standard Hollywood fare, cleaned up for the Christian audience that Universal prays will show up."
- Orlando Sentinel
"Frank Capra, stop rolling in your grave. At least they cared enough to steal from the very best, as the new Steve Carell comedy labors mightily to re-create the sublime pleasures of Capra's humane and vivid populist rousers."
- Washington Post
"Although Wanda Sykes, as Evan's executive assistant, and Ed Helms, as (what else?) a preening yutz of a TV reporter, do what they can to keep the edges sharp, nothing can offset the picture's dutiful Sunday-school intentions or the generic qualities of the CG animals that follow Noah in twosies."
- Entertainment Weekly
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