MOVIE THOUGHTS: EVAN ALMIGHTY

You know you're in trouble when friends who have already seen a movie praise it by saying, "It has a great message."

Or when the guy in the row in front of you flips out his cell phone and starts texting halfway through the movie.

And you don't care.

Sigh...

I wanted to like Evan Almighty. I went to it expecting to like it. And it did have its moments. But if I had to give a thumbs up or thumbs down, I'd be wavering toward down.

Let's start with the elements that work. Morgan Freeman as God is delightful, and many of the best moments center around him. The scene with Lauren Graham at the diner where he tells her that if someone prays for patience or courage, what they actually get is the opportunity to be patient or courageous. And the final scene between God and Evan -- quite moving scene, actually -- where they dance together. Lovely.

Wanda Sykes is also spot on every time she's on screen, lifting what is often routine dialogue to laugh-out-loud levels.

And I liked the animals helping out with the building of the ark.

But for the most part, after these moments, the movie pretty much lost me.

Too much simply doesn't make sense, on the macro and micro levels. On the micro level: Evan has just been elected to Congress. The clips we see of his campaign treat it as an ordinary campaign, not a special election. Yet he shows up to start his new job -- which mandatorily starts in January -- in the middle of summer. He does no work whatsoever; in fact, there's really nothing remotely believable about the entire "Congress" aspect of the story. I think the movie could have been stronger, in fact, if Evan had stayed in his anchorman job and been forced to build the ark from where he was.

And Evan's three sons -- cookie-cutter kids if ever there were any, clearly only in existence because Noah had three sons, not because they're real characters in any way -- not only don't have to go to school, but they're disappointed because dad cancels a hike with them -- on a work day. If ever there were kids with no reason to be disappointed, these are the kids.

I could keep going (for a very long time) on things that don't work on the micro level, but let's turn to the macro.

Why does God have Evan build an ark? Well, supposedly it's to save Evan, his family, the animals, and an odd assortment of gawkers and neighbors from this huge flood that's due to a shoddy dam resulting from a shoddy deal from Evan's political nemesis.

But if that was the reason, why build an ark? Why not have Evan discover the shoddy dam in another way? And all those animals wouldn't even be there (and thus wouldn't need saving) if it weren't for the ark building in the first place. So we can cross saving-the-animals off as a reason for building an ark.

Okay, I hear you saying, what if building the ark was for Evan's repentance and change. Fine. Let's go with that.

Evan gives in to God pretty easily. It's predictable that he do so, of course, or else the ark won't get built. So even though it's set up at the beginning that Evan needs to connect with God and rely on Him, that's not the ultimate lesson of building the ark.

Is building the ark supposed to bring his family together? (Again, a pretty extreme way to do this.) Well, maybe, except that his family is not all that fractured. None of the kids are in trouble, the marriage isn't in trouble. The biggest problem appears to be that Evan is a bit disconnected from his kids' lives, maybe could spend more time with them -- but we don't see that this is a real problem. In fact, he appears to spend more time at home than most dads I know. So yeah, the family teams up to help with the ark, but it's not solving a real problem that the filmmakers bothered to give more than lip service to.

(Compare Evan's character arc in the movie to that of Jim Carrey in Liar Liar -- another dad-needs-to-connect-to-his-family movie, but one that actually works -- to see the opportunities they missed here.)

So what does Evan learn from building the ark? What is the big result of everything he goes through? Well, he goes on a hike with his kids. And he adopts a dog.

And he had to build an ark to do this??

As for the big "message" we're left with at the end of the movie? "A simple Act of Random Kindness can change the world." Sure. That's true, on a small scale. But it has nothing to do with this movie. The big "act of random kindness" (note the initials) is adopting the dog. And that happens pretty much mid-movie, not as a result of finishing the ark.

In fact, the movie is basically over and done with the moment Evan agrees to build the ark. (Or is he forced to agree? Was Noah tricked into building the ark as Evan is? Can we really say that Evan was given a free choice to follow and obey God here, given the amount of pranking God pulls on him?) Everything from that moment on -- and it's a pretty early moment -- is completely predictable. No wonder the guy in front of me got busy with his texting.

A final peeve with the movie: After the truly lovely moment of God and Evan dancing together, we're treated to an over-the-credits sequence of cast and crew dancing on the set, surrounded by blue screen. Now, if I believed anything in this movie at all, I wouldn't want to have it ruined by watching the ark sitting in a sound stage. And I really feel no need to end the movie with shots of the director hugging people. A little egotistic, if you ask me.

A disclaimer to these thoughts: My daughter loved the movie. My husband liked it. My son pretty much liked it, but said he understood why the critics didn't. So clearly it's connecting with some people.

But not with me. Even though I really wanted it to. Evan Almighty is just a very well-intentioned mess, with some lovely, lovely moments that show what it could have been.