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Movie Review: Evolution
By Ali Asadullah 14/06/2001
CAST
David Duchovny ... Ira Kane
Orlando Jones ... Harry Block
Julianne Moore ... Allison Reed
Seann William Scott ... Wayne Green
If there's one way to win the summer box offices wars, it's with numbers; and as the 2001 race heats up, DreamWorks is poised to take more than its fair share of booty. Which numbers are best? Kiddie numbers. And which movies entice the most kiddies? Animated features and films with strong "creature appeal."
Filling the animated feature slot most recently for DreamWorks has been Shrek, which is more than holding its own, grossing over $176 million in its first month. Right on
Shrek's coattails and satisfying kids' predictable thirst for anything that drips, oozes and looks and sounds like a dinosaur, is
Evolution, brought to you by Ivan Reitman, one of the masterminds behind the
Ghostbusters phenomenon of the 1980s.
The film centers on the adventures and misadventures of two community college science professors, played by David Duchovny, of
X-Files fame, and Orlando Jones, who is best known as the pitch-man for 7-Up. Thinking that they are on their way to a Nobel Prize, the characters played by Duchovny and Jones -- Ira Kane and Harry Block, respectively -- scheme to investigate a meteorite that that has crashed in the Arizona desert, resulting in some odd and rapid organic evolutionary growth at the crash site.
As cliche would have it, the military preempts our heroes' plans, taking over investigation of the strange creatures that continue to morph at the site. The introduction of the military, including researcher Allison Reed (played by Academy Award Nominee Julianne Moore), sets up the expected tension between arrogant government types and our imminently qualified yet overlooked heroes.
While the military goes about with a heavy-handed approach to the investigation and then eradication of the alien life forms, Kane, Block, Reed and their faithful sidekick Wayne Green (Seann William Scott), who made the initial discovery, hustle about town investigating attacks by creatures that continue to grow in size and evolutionary complexity by the hour.
Through a very loose application of the scientific method, Kane develops a hypothesis speculating that by creating a homebrew of pesticide, the spread of the alien menace can be halted, thus terminating the creatures with extreme prejudice. Stopping just short of uttering the time-honored
Star Trek phrase "It just might work!" our heroes dash off to the save the world. And of course they do; but not before a great deal of slime and alien innards are strewn across the desert floor.
As is the case with most movies of this genre, the creatures are the real attraction here. From tiny insect-like ones, to pterodactyl wannabes, to surprise advanced life forms that show up near the end of the film, there is an alien to meet the tastes of most viewers.
Not to be mistaken for an action-thriller, Evolution is a comedy. As such, it relies heavily on good-natured banter amongst the main characters with a healthy dose of ribald humor to round things out. The movie does achieve its comedic goals, however not in a manner that makes the film stand out as a work of comedic genius. In other words, the dialogue is rather predictable, and the jokes employed have been worn rather thin over the past decade. However
Evolution was not made to be high art. It is a humorous diversion, laced with computer generated wizardry that should satisfy a significant enough overall audience to gross DreamWorks a pretty profit.
Although others have hailed Evolution as a Ghostbusters for the new decade, its otherworldly creatures lack the absurd "wow-factor" of a giant Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Others have also tried to draw comparisons to
Men In Black; however without the ultra-charismatic star-power of a Will Smith,
Evolution falls short on that count as well.
Most importantly however, is the fact that, by Muslim standards, Evolution is not a children's film. In fact, although it garners an MPAA rating of PG-13, the film's use of vulgar language and repeated sexual innuendo probably takes it out of range for the discerning Muslim viewer.
For those Muslims that do however venture out to spend their hard-earned money on this film, here is IOL's patented
AVERT YOUR EYES AND EARS warning (the numbers represent time into the movie):
1) 6:15 - Some flirtation between Block and a female student. Lasts about 1 minute.
2) 28:21 - About 30 seconds worth of lewd dialog.
3) 29:20 - Kane "moons" another character in protest, baring his entire backside for 5 seconds.
4) 39:11 - Kane and Block carry-on lewd conversation concerning Reed. Lasts about 1 minute.
5) 41:00 - Crass humor surrounding a rectal medical procedure.
6) 54:04 - Kane's ex-girlfriend slightly undoes her shirt in a restaurant.
7) 1:33:09 - Kiss between Kane and Reed.
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