The special effects comedy is a notoriously tough beast to pull off. Essentially perfected by Ghostbusters back in 1984, filmmakers have been trying to sniff out the formula ever since but have usually succumbed to the problems that’s it’s tough trying to mix comedic, natural, ad-libbed performances with complicated visual effects that, back then, had to be completed over a period of months. Simply put, the two don’t always mix as well as the tale of four scientists and a cab driver fighting ghosts to save New York – concentrate too heavily on the comedy and the effects become an expensive after thought, but if you prioritize the visuals over the laughs, you’re left with a finished project that’s about as funny as a home for abused kittens.
While many have failed in the past, Ivan Reitman, the man who gave us Ghostbusters in the first place, decided to come up with a full proof plan to ensure success when he delivered similarly wacky Evolution in 2001. What was it exactly? Simple: take Ghosbusters, copy the fuck out it and just add aliens.
A meteor streaks out of the night sky and ploughs into an automobile belonging to fireman wannabe, Wayne Grey, as he practices for an upcoming test in the Arizona. The next day, the laid back Ira Kane and the fortune hungry Harry Block, both a couple of charismatic scientists hailing from the nearby community college, arrive to examine the area and are stunned at what they find. Whatever space gunk had been brought into our atmosphere has managed to pull off around 2 billion years worth of evolution in about a couple of days, shifting from single celled organisms to flat worms in less time it takes for an Amazon package to arrive. However, before they can capitalise on their discovery, the military, led by the dickish Brigadier General Russell, swoop in a claim the site for itself and bar Ira and Harry from making contact with any of those nitrogen-based organisms.
However, those pesky little alien buggers not only keep evolving into weirder and wider creatures, they’re starting to bust out from the cave where the meteor landed, leaving Ira, Harry and a tagging along Wayne to try and mop up the army’s messes and keep the people of Glen Canyon safe. But when the creatures finally evolve into violent primates, the order goes out to eliminate the space-born lifeforms once and for all and Russell is only too eager to nail them with lashings of napalm.
This would be great except for one thing: fire seems to send these creatures into a molecular frenzy and will no doubt spell doom for every single lifeform on this planet unless the guys and clumsy army researcher Dr. Allison Reed come up with a daring plan.
It’s tough not to play a strange, cinematic version of “Spot the Difference” while watching Evolution as the aforementioned similarities with Ghostbusters are so many, you can’t help but wonder if Ivan Reitman genuinely thought we wouldn’t notice. Firstly we have David Duchovny’s womanizing, under-achieving scientist who approaches everything with a smug smirk that suggests he has a terminal case of the Venkmans and both he and Olando Jones’ similarly opportunistic boffin gets into numerous, comedic scrapes with various beasties as they quip they way through danger. On top of that, Ted Levine is on hand as the asshole general to add a bit of classic, Reitman-style disdain for members of authority and the movie even has a gigantic final boss to defeat in the form of a city-sized amoeba, subbing for the cheery demeanor of a 100-ft Marshmallow Man.
I guess you can’t blame Reitman for trying, but truth be told, the result was that Evolution, for all its state of the art effects (thank you Phil Tippett), felt dated even back in 2001 as it bounced between its heavy handed tone of throwback, dude humour (the film’s pretty patronising towards women) and weird, butt related stuff. Having Julianne Moore in your goofy, sci-fi comedy is quite the catch, but the best the movie can do for her, aside from being the love interest, is simply to make her clumsy, which not only sticks two fingers up at the fact that she’s supposed to be a senior researcher in epidemiology for the CDC, but proves to be drastically unfunny. Elsewhere, Duchovny’s come-on’s and sub-plots about Jones’ extra curricular activities are fairly creepy and at one point even garners that tried and tested one liner where he assures someone that the girls on his hard drive are all over eighteen – plus remarks that Moore’s character “needs a good humping” are just out and out weird in a family film. Aside from this, the film is also strangely obsessed with butt-stuff which proves to be more than a little perplexing. When you’re not trying to process the sight of an alien insect with a big, fleshy, behind, Orlando Jones is either having a burrowing mutant mosquito removed from his colon via his rectum or is himself sucked into the arsehole of a giant amoeba and you start to wonder if any of the multiple screenwriters have a notably fetish that they’ve decided to share with moviegoers…
Still, when Evolution finally manages to remove its head out of it’s own orrifice, it’s not a bad little escapade, it’s just nowhere as smart or funny as it obviously thinks it is. When Duchovny and Jones aren’t debating whether female colleagues are frigid, they actually have the great chemistry needed to carry this type of movie off and while Sean William Scott seems like an odd fit, he gets to perform a lot of that amiable dufus schtick that made him so hot at the time.
Also making the time fly rather nicely is the varied creatures that keep insisting on leveling-up like high aggressive Pokemon and an action scene involving the gang hunting a hefty, winged lizard as it flies around a mall, traumatizing shoplifters, is a definate high-point, as are some legitimately creepy, blue primates. It’s just a shame that Evolution misses just as much as it hits and you feel that it probably could have done with a couple more drafts before pulling the trigger on probably would have been a significant budget. Look at it like this: as a Ghostbusters beater, it’s laughable – but it’s no better or worse than a couple of actual Ghostbuster follow ups floating around out there.
Still, as an undemanding monster mash, special effects comedies have done worse and there’s enough genuine laughs at play to almost forgive the filmmakers for stealing the three-eyed smiley face from Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan.
It’s just that for a film called Evolution, you’d expect it to be a little more…. evolved?
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