Review: 'Evolution' amusing, not very involving

By Paul Tatara
CNN Reviewer

(CNN) -- You'll be hard-pressed to find a review of "Evolution" -- an intentionally silly special effects comedy starring David Duchovny and Julianne Moore -- that doesn't refer to "Ghostbusters" (1984) or "Men in Black" (1997).

All three pictures operate on glib banter, and their monster-battling protagonists seem fully aware that they're participating in a dumb summer movie: They sound like they're channeling Groucho Marx, even when their lives are in peril.

Though "Evolution"'s rather pokey pace is a welcome reprieve from screaming, 100-mile-a-minute onslaughts like "The Mummy Returns," it's not a complete success. Character development is virtually non-existent, and director Ivan Reitman -- who also helmed "Ghostbusters" -- comes close to boring you with his never-varying sense of comic timing. He consistently waits two beats after a shocking event, then has someone drop a rib-nudging quip into the mix. The movie, though likable, seems directed by a metronome.

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Duchovny plays Dr. Ira Kane, a laid-back community college biology teacher who, along with his geologist buddy, Harry Block (Orlando Jones), is one of the first people to inspect a meteor that's landed in the Arizona desert. Ira and Harry climb into a deep crater and find a rock that, quite unexpectedly, oozes a mysterious fluid when they hit it with a pick.

Ira takes a sample of the substance back to his lab, where he discovers it contains cells that are dividing at a remarkably accelerated rate. Soon, the cells have evolved into a bird-like life form, which then changes into a decidedly non-microscopic, fang-baring creature. Ira determines that the entity is accomplishing in a matter of days what it's taken Homo sapiens millions of years to achieve through natural selection.

Parody of 1950s sci-fi

The movie starts having its fun with 1950s sci-fi movie cliches.

The creatures become nastier with each evolutionary stage. They die when they breathe the earth's atmosphere, but you know that won't last long. Thanks to mitosis, they're also multiplying very, very quickly. And the government gets on the case, ready to inadvertently release the monsters on an unsuspecting public.

After being banned from the meteor site, Ira and Harry befriend Allison (Julianne Moore), an epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Allison takes a shine to Ira, and vice versa, and the two -- with Harry -- work to stop the creatures before it's too late.

Unfortunately, Duchovny and Moore's relationship is drawn sketchily. Allison is the least fully drawn character in a script that's chock full of them. Her primary personality trait is her penchant for falling down. Moore's sunny sexiness is enjoyable, and there's no denying her ease with any kind of material, but not even she can do much with this role.

Meanwhile, Duchovny appears to be leading with a blank face. But with him, at least, the shtick works. He's a nifty comic actor, even though his modus operandi is to stringently avoid responding to the shocking sights that surround him. He acts like he's watching everything through a protective sheet of Plexiglas.

Ridiculousness

The same certainly can't be said of Jones, who goes bug-eyed so often you'd think he was in a Three Stooges one-reeler. He does, however, deliver some funny lines about being the only African-American in the cast, and there's a hilarious scene where one of the creatures literally gets under his skin.

The biggest surprise, as far as the actors go, is an unexpectedly endearing performance from Seann William Scott, as a dim-witted would-be fireman who winds up helping the gang battle a two-million pound tapeworm. Their plan for killing the beast, by the way, involves the most overtly ridiculous instance of product placement in movie history.

It's that kind of self-deflation that keeps the picture merrily hopping along, even when the storyline turns into a litany of big-budget creature assaults. To some degree, you've seen it all before, and "Men in Black" did it much better. Still, there are a bunch of laughs, and some standout ideas, such as a shoplifter being picked up and tossed around a suburban mall by a flying dragon.

That should count for something. But "Evolution," though amusing, doesn't count for much else.

There's a highly convincing degree of creepy-crawly ickiness in "Evolution." It would probably scare the daylights out of younger children. Reitman also includes a foray into what can only be described as a massive alien rectum. There's a phrase you don't see very often. Rated PG-13.