It's hard not to feel just a shade cynical about Ivan Reitman's Evolution. I mean, it's not as though Reitman was a one-hit wonder - the likes of Kindergarten Cop and Junior did just fine on the back of his reputation and that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, while Dave was actually sort of charming - but it must feel to him as though he's spent the majority of his directorial career trying to live up to the overwhelming success of 1984's Ghostbusters.
Did I mention that I don't particularly like Ghostbusters?
For some people, directing one film that left an indelible mark on the public consciousness would be enough. And yet, seventeen years later, here comes Reitman with a tale of another ragtag bunch of misfits and misunderstood geniuses, who are spurned by the Powers that Be only to eventually triumph against an unearthly menace. It's a completely different movie, though, honest - these guys travel by fire engine!
It all starts with a nod to HG Wells, as aspiring firefighter Wayne (Seann William Scott) finds a night of private damsel-saving practice in the desert rudely interrupted when a meteorite lands on the shed he's just set alight. Rather than housing a fully-formed alien menace, however, this particular chunk of space rock seems completely and safely inert. A few hours later, though, when community college science tutors Ira Kane and Harry Block (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones respectively) take a trip out to investigate, they find that the meteorite hasn't only grown moss but is seeping a clear liquid. They take a sample, and before long they realize that what they have is alien DNA that's growing and evolving at a rate earthly life can only dream of.
Eschewing the sensible reaction of terrified screaming, Park and Banks' first reaction is to try and work out how to transmute their samples into a Nobel Prize. Eventually, however, even they work out that something more important might be at stake. They are hampered, of course, by the police and the military, but luckily there's a cute and klutzy army scientist (Allison, played by Julianne More) who's sufficiently taken by Block as to be prepared to defect at just the right moment. There's no time to waste, either, as the alien menace evolves from fungus to insects to fish, dinosaurs and eventually a yeti-like primate.
I actually didn't hate this film as much as I was exasperated by it. There were aspects that I really wanted to like - the original concept is fantastic, and I'd still be delighted and terrified to see something similar tricked out as sci-fi/horror rather than a comedy adventure. The creature design is appealing, too, and audience-appropriate, allowing space for a couple of quick jump scares but nothing to stop small people sleeping at night. I'm sure the production values on this one were staggering, and for once, it feels as though it might have been money well spent.
Unfortunately, what lets Evolution down is the human element. Give them their due, the cast are solid, producing more-or-less convincing work reacting to whatever it is actors have to react to when they're eventually going to look as though they're reacting to CGI beasties.
Nope, the problem here is with the script. Like Paul, another comedy alien flick, Evolution is very much an ode to the superiority of the white male middle-class geek. The joke here seems to be on everyone except for David Duchovny. Let Julianne Moore take all the pratfalls, let Orlando Jones have a spiky alien insect removed from his rectum (as with Paul, rather too much of the humour here is related to sphincters and their various emissions) and let the overweight white trash come out with the stupidest lines; Duchovny's role in all this is to be sympathetic and to have every female in the film lusting after him. Okay, okay, this is Duchovny, it's what people do, but it still felt uncomfortable and just a tiny bit dull.
Sunday afternoons aren't a time when I'm particularly picky about what I watch, and while it might be faint praise, Evolution does at least improve as it goes along. By the time it finished I did sort of feel as though I'd been entertained, without too much of the grubbiness I often get when watching mainstream comedies. In the end, though, this is a movie that will only ever be discussed in the same breath as Ghostbusters, and as an inferior sibling. As epitaphs go, it's a humiliating one but ultimately justified.
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