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Directed
By: Ivan Reitman
Written By: Don Jakoby (story) / David Diamond
Starring: David Duchovney, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones,
Seann William Scott
Rated: PG-13 (Language / Brief Nudity)
Running Time: 90 Min.
When a meteor slams into the Arizona desert and nasty alien
life forms begin oozing from it, who you gonna call? You would
of course call David Duchovney and Orlando Jones, two teachers
from the local community college. Together, these E.T. Buster
wannabes try to contain the otherworldly forces that confront
them, while attempting to act silly at the same time. Help
in the form of an equilibrium-challenged Julianne Moore is
introduced as both a love interest and an additional source
of silliness to aid our zany scientists in their work.
This movie had the potential to be a really great piece of
science fiction comedy, but had an equal chance to be a really
awful one. However unlikely, Evolution manages to fail on
both counts. Most of the laughs are only due to Duchovney's
involvement in the television program and film The X-Files.
None of those laughs are because of the script, mind you,
but simply that Duchovney has chosen this role as his first
departure from his X-Files character of Fox Mulder. As for
other laughs, they are few and far between. It appears that
everyone involved knew this from the outset, as desperate
acts of physical humor attempt to make up for the lack of
funny dialogue. Also attempting to be funny is Orlando Jones,
who has a couple funny lines, but is rather sadly given nothing
better to do than rattle off variations on the same tired
"this always happens to the black guy" type of joke
for most of the movie. Most of the other jokes provided by
the script are equally or more tasteless in nature. Lastly,
this film ends almost as successfully as the average Saturday
Night Live sketch, and that is not a good thing!
On the bright side, this movie does have a few impressive
special effect sequences, a great cast and, well, um, I guess
that's about it for the bright side. So, if you were hoping
to discover that missing link between
Ghostbusters and Men in Black, keep searching because Evolution
certainly isn't it.
Allen
J Vestal
A.J.'s
Place: Movies & More!
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