Evan Almighty

If you haven't seen this movie yet then you haven't seen it.

My wife and I went to this as part of a date that we went on Friday night. Overall I would say that it is a decent movie that would be safe to take the family to.

I had heard good reviews about it, but I am surprised that from the Conservative Christian side I didn't hear more negative about it.

Here's the plot in a nutshell-

A guy gets elected to become a Congressman. So he and his family move to a new gated community to get settled as he heads to his new job in Washington. As the story unfolds he begins to get this feeling that God is sending him a message telling him that he needs to build an ark. This is later confirmed when God visits him.

So as time goes by God begins to work on his reluctance and skepticism and causes him to grow a beard and long hair. Tons of lumber is then dropped off at his house and pairs of each animal gradually start showing up at his house. He eventually gives into his calling, quits going to work, and builds the ark. Meanwhile, everyone starts laughing at him and mocking him in disbelief that a flood is going to be coming.

The flood does come at the last minute, but it ends up being because of investors cutting corners in their building strategies that leads to the breaking of a dam. The ark then proves not to be necessary to only save all of the animals but whoever will jump on it to be saved from the flood that wiped their houses out.

Overall, I thought that it was just an odd story. In my opinion it was too much of a mish-mash of biblical legend and modern environmental activism.

What I don't understand from the story was why a pair of every known animal came to Noah's house, especially those animals that clearly didn't even live in that region when this flood was clearly local; probably even more local than the flood recorded in the Bible.

The 2nd thing is the question of why the main character had to have long hair and a long beard. Was it entirely necessary? His kids didn't get long hair when they were helping him build.

I've got many other questions about why the writers made this movie like the way they did but I can't even think of them all right now. I just found myself at several points wondering how the true connection could be made or what the exact message of the movie was supposed to be. Well, I know what the message was supposed to be, but I wondered what many parts of the movie had to do with the message.

What the movie did have going for it. The effects were alright. The acting was alright. Lauren Graham. John Goodman. Steve Carell.

The story touched on overcoming adversity, doing good to your neighbor, standing up for your convictions...

I give the movie a thumbsideways. I probably wouldn't care to see the movie again, but at least when I watched it the first time it was with my wife and she liked it.