Evolution (2001)

Directed by  : Ivan Reitman
Written by    : Don Jacoby, David Diamond, David Weissman
Starring       : David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Julianne Moore, Seann William Scott
Also starring : Ted Levine, Ethan Suplee, Ty Burrel, Dan Akroyd

There are some films that have complicated and multi-layered plots that can never be accurately reduced to one-line summaries. There are also many films which can be neatly summarised in a few words, often involving comparisons to other films. Evolution is one such movie, it’s not really over-simplifying to describe as “Ghostbusters - except with aliens”.

David Duchovny is always going to be most associated with the X-Files and hasn’t had the most glittering of movie careers but he manages to make a decent stab at deadpan comedy in the main role here as Dr. Ira Kane, a university professor who was expelled from the army medical corps after making a disastrous error. Together with Orlando Jones’ professor (who is much more from the annoyingly hyperactive school of comedy) he discovers alien organisms in a meteorite which seem to be trying to evolve in a higher (and more deadly) form of life.

Before long alien-dinosaur-things are chasing the inept duo down the centre of the local shopping mall and with the help of clumsy government scientist Julianne Moore and dumb firefighter Seann William Scott they must fight back against the alien menace in suitably ridiculous ways using some extremely tenuous scientific logic and lots of shampoo.

The film has a fair number of decent jokes, but is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and while the plot works well enough for a comedy it’s too half-baked to make this work as a serious film.

The acting is generally quite decent for a comedy film, although the show is stolen by a cameo appearance by Dan Akroyd. The special effects look quite nice and wouldn’t look out-of-place in a serious alien sci-fi film. The direction and scripts are also pretty decent as you’d expect from Ghostbusters-director Ivan Reitmann.

Ultimately, there isn’t that much to say about this film except that it’s reasonably amusing and entertaining enough to be worth watching. A bit like Ghostbusters then.

Rating : 7 / 10

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All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .