"Evan Almighty" came out three years ago, and I ignored it. I thought it would be lousy. I figured it'd be crap. What a stupid assumption that was! It wasn't bad: it was a massive pile of shit.

"Evan Almighty" is, indisputably, the worst film ever made. Nothing else comes close. Did "Plan 9 From Outer Space" cost $80 million dollars? Did "Showgirls" feature A-list stars? Do they repeatedly air "Troll 2" on a major network at Christmastime?

Evan, played by Steve Carell, is a modern-day Noah. Remember Noah's wife? The writers here don't either. The only lines spouted by Lauren Graham over two hours of screen time are, "Honey, are you positive God told you to build an ark?" and (SPOILER ALERT) "Gosh, I should have believed you all along!"

Likewise, their kids are the invention of someone who's never met actual children. Their love never wavers. They just want to be around Dad. They bring their skateboards and turn the semi-constructed Ark into a half-pipe. Look! Matthew did a quadruple Ollie. There's no disrespect. Also no girls, no swearing, no cigarettes.

You expect them to solve the Da Vinci code next.

The movie's main target, though, is disbelievers (read atheists and Democrats). Those NPR-listeners who'd run over Jesus in their Priuses if he got between them and the Whole Foods parking lot don't believe Evan. Heathens! He lectures them, but still they don't believe. He builds his ark, but still they don't believe. One pair from each of eight thousand species of animals, most from different continents, spontaneously wander to the ark and climb up the gangplank, but still they --

What?

Yeah, we're thick that way. "Yeah, honey, I saw it. That crank somehow got sixteen thousand animals to walk here from Nigeria and Peru, and now they're lined up to get on his boat. They're as blotto as he is. Hey, is Rachel Maddow on?"

The disbelievers stand by the ark and laugh, only backing away when the animals lurch at them. See, all this takes place in a state where you don't need to keep ferocious animals in cages. Naturally I'm thinking it's some flat, warm part of Sarah Palin's Alaska. When lions and tigers and wild boar growl at, say, police officers, they'll just look scared and scamper behind a tree. Because there's nothing written in the penal code, there's nothing they can do.

The movie is awash with small miracles, like when Evan's building the ark. "There's no way I can finish it in time!" he screams in frustration.

"But you could if you got the animals to help," little Luke offers, in between Flip 540s.

"That's brilliant!" Evan screams. "That's it! The animals can help! The animals can help!"

And in the next scene you see a monkey holding a hammer. A monkey holding a hammer, on a boat the size of eighty football fields. Hoorah! Fuck you, Teamster oafs!

Literally every second of this monstrosity boggles the mind, but one scene in particular stands out. You'll pinch yourself to make sure you aren't dreaming. Before the flood, Evan's kids notice that the animals are acting weird. "Animals have an amazing ability to sense things that humans can't," tousle-haired Leviticus says. "When there's weather coming, they sit."

Got that? It's a work of art, that line. So much shit packed into so few words.

First, "weather coming"? Not "bad weather," just "weather." Like your puppy will take to its haunches when partly cloudy appears.

The main problem, of course, is that the "sitting" part is pure bullshit. Animals freak out when storms approach. They howl, they run around, they paw at the ground. Maybe this was in the original script. But when the producer saw it, he said, "Hey, I'm paying three hundred bucks to have a tiger growl. I'm not forking over eight thousand to have some fuckin' ibex paw dirt. Change that: Instead of the animals going apeshit, they'll . . . they'll . . . sit."

"Sit?" the writer repeats, incredulous. "Like, sit down?"

"Yeah," the producer confirms. "When they sense trouble, they sit. In fact, we already got dogs who'll do it. I can pay for three hookers and an ounce of blow with the cash I save."

Eventually, of course, the flood comes, but it's not from God. That'd just be too religious, despite the fact the DVD actually smacks you with a hammer if you don't have a crucifix in your home. Water pours through the center of town, eighty feet high, lifting the ark and washing away everything in its path.

Ten feet away, people watch in awe. They point. "Look at all that water!" they say. And then, because it doesn't actually flow toward them, they turn back to what they were doing. "So, what else is on sale at Rite Aid?" they say.

As the water evaporates, the religious people high-five and the disbelievers pack up and move away in shame. The happy ending is confirmed by a TV news anchor. "Everything's great now," he says. "Don't know how the animals will get home, but since we don't know how they got here, that seems perfectly cool."

Fade to black. You're frozen in your chair. Stunned. Speechless.

In fact, if Steve Carell hadn't taken off his shirt about halfway through, you'd swear you wouldn't watch it next year.