Evan Almighty

Evan Almighty is an ungainly melding of religious paean, big-budget studio comedy, feel-good family niceties and summer-blockbuster spectacle.

For long after the waters have subsided, there remains a very wide gap between havoc and hilarity.

Should have been a lot more amusing than it turns out.

Safety over satire at almost every turn.

Avoid like the Ten Plagues.

One very expensive flop.

But most of these faults are due to the film’s commitment to the philosophical bit. Also, they named the Noah-character’s wife “Joan” (Lauren Graham) because her husband is building an ark.

What Evan Almighty shows is that one act of random kindness can indeed make a difference.

With "Evan Almighty," director Tom Shadyac and writer Steve Oedekerk again manage to balance humor with spiritual insight.

It all goes down about as smoothly as an apple in the Garden of Eden.