Evolution Review
By Joe Lozito
Alien Life-less
I can't think of a recent movie that wastes quite as much talent as "Evolution", the "Ghostbusters" rip-off from (surprise!) the people who brought you "Ghostbusters" just in time for the 17th anniversary of Director Ivan Reitman's paranormal comedy classic. This time, the special effects apparitions are aliens who crash land somewhere in the Arizona desert and begin to evolve at an alarming rate (in the first day they've gone from amoebas to flatworms). Thanks to some underground caverns and a script that doesn't care even about "common" sense, the aliens pop up everywhere from suburban malls to broom closets.
This time around our intrepid alien-busters are played by David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, and Seann William Scott. Only Mr. Jones seems to understand the tone that this movie so sorely lacks and he is responsible for the few genuine laughs in the film. It's almost as if he had studied some of Mr. Reitman's earlier efforts (Stripes, Dave). Like Mr. Reitman's more recent films (Six Days, Seven Night, Father's Day) however, "Evolution" suffers from a startlingly awful script. Not even the opening scenes, during which Mr. Reitman's movies usually shine (remember the New York Public Library in "Ghostbusters" or Bill Murray's hysterical break-up scene in "Stripes") does "Evolution" hit the right notes.
Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Rick Moranis are sorely missed. None of the characters are worth mentioning here. Mr. Duchovny and Mr. Jones are almost interchangeable early in the film, until Mr. Duchovny (reduced to mooning an Army General for a gag) gets bogged down in some ludicrous backstory about a mishandled Anthrax vaccine. At least the "scientists" in "Ghostbusters" could talk the talk, here they even have trouble walking the walk. This is no more evident than in the sadly and inexplicably present Julianne Moore whose only distinguishing trait is that she trips over everything. Really. That's the extent of it. When the writers Don Jakoby, David Diamond and David Weissman came up with that one, they might have wanted to ask for help from Dan Aykroyd, who is on hand (also wasted) as the Governor of Arizona.
It's sad that "Evolution" feels almost like an Internet knock-off of "Ghostbusters", all the way up to the finale which (like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man) revolves around a supermarket staple and some wildly overused special effects. Deep down, "Evolution" has the right idea and even the right actors, but its script seems to be from another planet.
