I just got back from a test screening of Evolution. The invite pretty much fell into my lap. I had no plans, so I went. All I knew about the movie was that Duchovny was in it. I didn’t even know it was a comedy. So I entered the theater with zero expectations. Ivan Reitman introduced the film as a work in progress, etc. He expressed concern about the ending, that perhaps it was too confusing. Then the lights dimmed and we were rolling.
It would be hard to spoil this film because you’ve already seen it before. The rickety sci-fi plot device that passes for the premise is this: A chunk of rock falls out of the sky into the middle of the desert in Arizona. Two washed up community college professors (Duchovny and Jones), find it and start experimenting with it. The rock oozes some Windex-blue ectoplasm that contains (gasp!) a rapidly growing alien organism. The two professors-cum-scientists grow starry-eyed with dreams of walking away with the Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, the pre-fab army troops are rolling out of the Hollywood military surplus warehouse to lock down the meteor site. Couple this with your stock HAZMAT/CDC bubble-heads milling about with their Bio-Safety Level 4 vacuum-sealed tennis shoes and you’ve got the picture. The primary human conflict immediately becomes the wise-cracking underdogs versus the cold-hearted military regime. But that little drama takes a back seat to the freewheeling antics of the genetic aberrations that have been unleashed on the nearby town.
Now, one might be forgiving and say that surely this 21st century audience has forgotten all about “The Blob,” so the writers can get away with rehashing that story. But it is another matter to suggest that we have forgotten Ghostbusters. From the moment you see that blue ectoplasm, I can tell you that something will strike you as very familiar. When you see the winged beast swooping through a shopping mall, terrorizing the hapless patrons, you’ll begin to say, “Wait a minute…” By the end, when everyone is covered with marshmallow-like goo, you’ll know you’ve been had.
“Evolution” is so saturated with that Ghostbusters feel, you’ll wonder where the unlicensed nuclear particle packs are. When you remember that both films were made by the same director, you’ll realize what that taste in the back of your throat is. That’s right, it’s the Hollywood formula: a sweet and tangy cocktail of Pixi Stix in water. And it’s that Ghostbusters 2 flavor: a ho-hum experience that had potential, but it leaves you longing for the original.
Sadly, the most polished aspect of the film was the special effects. Now, this is not to say that Phil Tippet’s creations were sub-par. On the contrary, his studio has kicked out another batch of some of the most life-like critters I’ve seen yet. This time around, I think he had a copy of Wayne Barlowe’s “Expedition” spread open on the workbench next to him. The creatures had very rich, saturated coloring with a Starship Troopers sensibility when it came to motion and behavior.
The actors gave a passable performance. Duchovny once more demonstrated his limited range as Likable Quirky Smartmouth. One can only suppose that Julianne Moore was slumming again a la Jurassic Park 2. Orlando Jones was pretty amusing, but he was obviously there as the token funny black guy. <What’s his name> was basically Matt Dillon Lite. The guy who played the evil general was virtually computer-generated. Halfway through the film, Dan Ackroyd stumbled into the frame and delivered the undignified performance you’d expect from Saturday Night Live alumni who return to host the show long after they’ve stopped being funny.
There is no character development to speak of. Each character seems to be the end product of rote adherence to a screenwriter’s style guide. Duchovny’s character is a discredited scientist who wants to make good and clear his name. Moore is the stiff ice queen with a passionate core yearning to break free. All knowledge of what each character is about is gleaned strictly from verbal exposition. “Show me, don’t tell me.” – It’s one of the most elementary maxims of strong writing, but is completely ignored here. None of the characters exude any chemistry beyond what archetypical behaviors the writers bestowed on them.
The film is rife with scatological humor that only works on a few occasions. It’s almost as though Howard Stern were hanging out with the writers and he’d occasionally lean over and whisper “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if her top button randomly popped off so her boobies could explode out of her sweater?” Cheap, unfunny gags are just tossed in without purpose.
Now I come to the ending. The ending is flawed and mediocre; the worst part of the film. The tension between the military and the underdogs has already been established. The military seeks to destroy the alien menace that has oozed out into the strip malls of the fair city. Now, the textbook plot calls for the heroes to take the opposite position and seek to save and preserve these creatures. But you know what? The good guys want to kill all the aliens too, just in a different way. Now, I would have been just as upset with the plot if it took the “Hey, this is a new life form! Let’s not forget the Prime Directive”-style angle. But I was disappointed that the heroes did not have anything more to offer than “Hey, let’s blow them up before the Army guys do!”
The inevitable victory gained by the heroes lacks punch because the threat isn’t really established. True, there are fanged critters romping all around, but none of them individually poses a real, global threat as is suggested in the film. The aliens are actually interesting and fun and I don’t want them to be wiped out. No animosity toward them is instilled in the audience. If they chewed on a few babies, stepped on a grandmother, or melted someone’s face, you might have a convincing argument for their extermination. But the aliens are just trying to evolve and survive. This inadvertently causes chaos, but there is no obvious evil here. The writers completely miss an opportunity to explore (even lightly) the nature of evolution and “If we are so advanced, why do we want to blow up a new life form just because it infringes on our comfort zone?”
While I realize that this is a work in progress, my prognosis is nevertheless grim. So many of the flaws are in the writing and the story that I don’t know how this film could be saved from mediocrity. Many scenes can be trimmed to pick up the pace in places. Some dialogue and pick-up shots could smooth out some of the logical leaps that are made to keep the plot rolling. If the ending were completely re-written, replaced with something more creative and less predictable, it might have a shot.
As it stands, this film should have stuck around in the primordial ooze. It isn’t evolution if it has all been done before.
To Summarize: Take a heaping portion of Ghostbusters 2 and a side order of The Blob remake, add a pinch of The X-Files and Mad TV, remove everything that was done right in The Faculty and The Iron Giant, blend, swallow without chewing, regurgitate it and call it “Evolution.”