Evolution

Lubricant and the giant product placement. A meteorite falls to Earth and lands right in the desert at Glen Canyon, Arizona. Two college professors, Dr. Ira Kane and Prof. Harry Phineas Block, take it upon themselves to investigate and mooch around. At the site, they discover worm like insects that are not of this world. Thinking they are on to Nobel Prize type history, they are dismayed when the government takes over the site and shunts them out the way. But as the insects start to evolve in the Earth atmosphere, they take on various shapes and forms of alien creatures. Pretty soon the whole place is over run and the government is at a loss in how to stop them. Enter Ira, Harry, Wayne and Allison to hopefully save the day. Directed by Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters 1 & 2), Evolution is a zany sci-fi comedy that achieves firmly what it sets out to do. Using the available special effects for great rewards, and lashing it in Technicolor, all that remained was to have a cast happy to be in on the joke itself. Up step David Duchovny (revelling in none serious X Files malarkey), Orlando Jones (getting all the best lines), Julianne Moore (accident prone) and Sean Wiillian Scott (goofball fireman wannabe). Backed up by Ted Levine, Dan Ackroyd, Ethan Suplee and Ty Burrell, pic is well served right across the cast list. Of course they aren't asked to do anything special, but it's not that kind of film. There's enough here for all the family to enjoy, kids will be awed by the array of alien creatures, whilst the adults should be chuckling away at some of the jokes. If you are expecting real science then you have come to the wrong place, Evolution parodies the sci-fi parodies, and then some. 7/10

"Ira" (David Duchovny) and "Harry" (Orlando Jones) are local college professors who go to investigate a meteor landing near their American town. When they get there, though, they discover it's riddled with strange looking creepy-crawlies that don't look at all indigenous. It's not long before the army shows up and these two are kicked off the project by an wholly incompetent "Gen. Woodman" (Ted Levine) and proper scientist "Allison" (Julianne Moore) - an ex of "Ira" who relishes sticking the knife in. As these beasties start to grow in number and size and become more menacing, the state governor "Lewis" (Dan Aykroyd) demands that the army takes action - but what can they do? Napalm? Meantime, our two intrepid scientists and their buddy "Wayne" (Seann William Scott) are working on a more "direct" approach to thwarting the expansion of our menacing alien visitors. At times it's quite a good laugh and some effort has gone into creating some squelchy and sticky monsters. There are even some hungry blue apes and SWS does a good job trying to tunelessly serenade one in the mall, but the rest of this is not especially original and the whole thing really relies too heavily on "Jones" to bring us some predictably comedy whilst Duchovny and Moore fall rather flat amidst a sea of not so subtle advertising. It's watchable and quite good fun, though, just not a film you'll remember.

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John Chard

CinemaSerf