EVOLUTION

2001

The good movies this week ("Atlantis," and "The Anniversary Party,") opened in only two cities, and unfortunately Boston wasn't one of them, so I settled for "Evolution." Don't make the same mistake! On paper, this must have seemed like it would be a spoof of "The X-Files" and films like "Ghostbusters" and Scary Movie." As it turned out, it's pure garbage, lacking the intelligence, humor and originality of those films. David Duchovny pokes fun of his Agent Muldur character, Orlando Jones once again plays the dumb-but-funny-black-man that he's been re-playing ever since his 7-Up commercial, and Julianne Moore....well let's just say that it's a bad career move. It's hard to imagine that Duchovny is leaving "The X-Files" to play these kind of roles. At least Gillian Andersen did an excellent acting job in the critically-acclaimed "The House of Mirth" on the big screen last year. (Rent it; it's worth seeing.) Getting back to "Evolution," Duchovny and Jones play professors(!!!) who try to stop aliens from evolving in Arizona. On a real campus, they would have started with the Economics department! If you enjoy seeing worms morph into large poorly drawn computer-graphics-monsters, then you might like this movie. A large, obviously retarded man, clapped furiously and laughed uncontrollably through the entire film. Enough said?

1 Star (I'm being generous)

NJB

I'm not sure why everyone says this movie is just like Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters was funny. This film is not. Ghostbusters had ghosts. This film has aliens. Ghostbusters had three scientists named Venkman, Spangler and Egor. This movie has three scientists named Kane, Reed and Block. At the end of Ghostbusters everyone is covered in marshmallow. At the end of Evolution, everyone is covered in alien puree. So, as you can see, the differences are endless. How Ivan Reitman could suck talented actors like Julian Moore and David Duchovny into a flop like this and still sleep at night is beyond me. The most humorous part about this movie is that, much unlike the alien creatures in this film, Reitman seems to be doing the exact opposite of evolving. Oh, and one more difference: Ghostbusters is a comically brilliant film combining the genius of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. In Evolution, Duchovny decided to moon another character during a take and Reitman decided to leave it in the film. Enough said.

2 Stars

CDF