A film review by Rachael Vice Copyright © 2001 Rachael Vice

Upon doing a preliminary run for his upcoming field test, rookie fireman, Wayne (Seann William Scott) is nearly killed by the meteor that crashes to Earth. Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and Harry Block (Orlando Jones) are the scientists who become infatuated with the meteor after discovering it contains alien organisms. Julianne Moore is Allison, a CDCP worker helping to keep the meteor quiet from the mass public. Together, they are the only hope for destroying an alien force that is quickly evolving into new lifeforms.

In other words, you've seen this movie a dozen times before. Aliens attack Earth and we have little time to stop them. The only thing new in EVOLUTION is the aliens. Unlike other films, there's not just one specific race of the aliens. They all look different. Some fly, others tunnel through the ground and some are actually adorable.

One thing that was against EVOLUTION the entire time was the comedy. Most movies with mass amounts of destructive aliens trying to make Earth their new home are incapable of being comedies. Even when the aliens are attacking people they always have to say something 'funny' which really doesn't work.
If an alien were after me (and I'm sure most of you would agree), the last thing I would do is try to make it laugh. EVOLUTION did give the aliens an interesting aspect (which could have made the movie much better had the comedy been left out), which was their ability to evolve like Earth's entities has been doing for millions of years in a matter of hours.

David Duchovny is best known as Agent Mulder from THE X-FILES and, in fact, Mulder seems to be the only character Duchovny can perform as. In all of his films, he's been incredibly lifeless. He never seems to really care about what's happening around him, whether it be alien or human assailants. Don't get me wrong. He is a perfect Mulder, but he doesn't need to be Mulder in all of his film appearances.

The director of EVOLUTION is Ivan Reitman. Reitman directs a movie about an alien force with three men and a woman as the heroes. Sound familiar? It should. Reitman made a movie with the same premise in 1984 - GHOSTBUSTERS. Only this time David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Seann William Scott and Julianne Moore stand in for Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Sigourney Weaver from GHOSTBUSTERS. And instead of angry ravaging ghosts, we have angry ravaging aliens.

Reitman has made nice movies in the past (SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS; LEGAL EAGLES), but he hasn't evolved at all with the science fiction genre.

Final Rating:  * *  of  * * * *

	Running Time: 103 Min | Rated: PG-13 | US Release: June 8th | More >>

Related Links:

• Official Site
• Script Reviews: Early - Shooting Draft
• DreamWorks SKG Fansite -- Evolution

Have a nice end of the world.