There's an awkward scene where Evan turns a swarm of birds in his office into a convincing argument for Long's bill, which leads to Long and his colleagues decrying the work of environmentalists who might frown upon the bill's concept of turning National Park land into building development sites. In the meantime, Evan starts growing a beard, which he shaves repeatedly only to have it return. There might be a lot of unnecessary fecal matter jokes here, but there are more pop culture references involving beards and long hair (member of the Bee Gees, John Lennon, the fifth Beatle—take your pick). The whole thing leads to the strange fashion statement of a ponytail on Evan's chin and robes that God left with a note. God loves leaving little notes, by the way.

God is also an identity thief here, using Evan's finances to purchase eight adjoining lots for the purposes of building the ark, but he gives him a copy of Ark Building for Dummies (groan) in return. Aside from the poop and beard jokes, the movie also contains a forced slapstick physical labor montage as Evan attempts to build the ark, falling and hitting himself with tools as often as possible. Steve Carell is a very funny man (in the first movie, he practically steals every scene he's in), but with this material, he's reduced to a shadow of his comic persona. Even Morgan Freeman, who exudes wisdom as the Almighty, doesn't have much to work with here. His God's insistence that random acts of kindness change the world sounds more Oprah-ish this time around, and even Freeman cannot make the argument that the tale of Noah and the flood is really a love story convincing. The flood this time around goes back to Long and some shady development deals, and one has to wonder why God cares so much about the material possessions of a bunch of well-to-do people in a gated community when there's so much of more vitally important things going on in—well, throw a dart at a map and you'll hit something.

The flood sequence isn't convincing on a special effects level, but it is slightly intense nonetheless, which is a problem unto itself. Suddenly, the whole movie becomes serious—and hence hypocritical—with its real-world parallel. At least Evan Almighty isn't blatantly preachy, although Evan does tell Long simply to "Repent." This is well after Long ends up covered in bird poop, of course.