Review: Evolution

Ivan Reitman's latest film Evolution stars David Duchovny and the Make Seven Up Yours guy in a reasonably entertaining rehashing of Ghostbusters featuring more butt related jokes then any movie without Adam Sandler. Decent CGI and action sequences are available too. Nothing that will warrant awards in this day and age, but it might entertain you for a few minutes. There's much more to be said about this, so keep reading if you want to know what I think, or just want to complain that I'm sharing it.

Our main characters are misfit scientists led by Duchovny who is as stone cold as ever playing Ira Kane. Along with the Make Seven Up Yours guy, they are teachers at the local community college. Ira has a cloudy history and Mr. 7-Up has no future (unless you count coaching the women's volleyball team). They don't quite fit in at the university, and they are busy hitting on the ladies (no, they don't administer shock therapy based psychic tests, but they might as well have).

So we've also got Stiffler's Mom's Son Seann William Scott playing the dummy wanna be firefighter who discovers the meteor that crashes out in a field in their desert town. The scientists go to the library and collect slime samples. Oh wait, no. They go to a cave and collect biological samples. Sorry, my bad. It's immediately apparent that the meteor contained some strange new life form (10 base pairs!) that evolves much faster then our pathetic (4 pairs!) earth life forms do.

Of course the government has to be called in led by a mean old general and the beautiful Julianne Moore who's slumming it playing Allison Reed, the military scientist who reveals that Duchovny and her go way back. She's probably the best actor but she doesn't really do much funny stuff except fall and bang into doors. I found it super strange watching her act this way. I hope she was paid very well for this part. Or at the very least, had tons of fun making it.

The plot progresses obviously with... Evolution! The alien life forms evolve from yellow mushrooms and worms into new exciting computer animated monsters. Our trio of heros continue to fight the authorities as well as these strange new monsters that wreak havoc on the small town. And despite the differences between Dana and Venkman, the sexual tension continues to grow. A great minor part by Dan Akroyd provides several good laughs- his delivery can still make a scene even when his lines aren't the best.

The computer animation and special effects is all reasonably good. But I didn't feel like it broke ground like it's stepbrother did. In Ghostbusters, the groundbreaking special effects advanced an entertaining plot and developed interesting characters. In Evolotion, effects no better then any film we've seen in the last few years advance a tedious plot and develop bland characters with obvious quirks taped onto them.

Allright, after all that cynicism, I have to say that I actually enjoyed a lot of the movie. Besides the obvious numerous parallels between this film and that "Other" movie, we've got a few pretty good action sequences, and a ton of jokes, and some of them are funny. Some of them don't involve asses, butts, colons, or farting! And the movie builds up to an exciting climax where the good guys must execute the biggest butt joke of all and destroy the stay puft marshmellow man, or their town is doomed.

But I laughed out loud many times. The movie has many awkward parts (random pauses for laughter which never came in the audience I was sitting in, characters explaining things like idiots which is supposed to be funny, but isn't) but check your brain at the door, forget you saw Ghostbusters, and have some fun. This film isn't going to innovate special effects. It's not going to have characters that we're going to remember in 15 years. It's not going to have scenes that you and a group of friends can quote verbatim after 3 beers. But you'll probably have fun for an hour or so. And the effects are good enough that it's worth seeing on the big screen.

In short, if you miss it, don't sweat it. But if you go, you'll probably have fun. And try to count the ghostbusters parallels while you go. Then make a mad lib and construct your own Ivan Reitman special effects blockbuster script and see if you can sell it to Dreamworks.

Oddball Offtopic Side Note For the first time ever in Holland, a total stranger noticed the Slashdot t-shirt I was wearing and asked for an autograph when I fessed up to who I was. Even tho he was the dude selling the tickets, it didn't get me in for free :)