By
Graig Uhlin
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Contrived plot lines, juvenile humor dampen what could be a clever send-up
Grade: C+
Hollywood aliens are usually pretty intelligent - the prevailing logic being that if a species has mastered interstellar travel, it's a good chance that they're smarter than the average bear, or human. Moreover, their perceived aptitude makes them a daunting menace for would-be heroes. Just think about the scariness factor of the aliens that hunt Ripley in the "Alien" series.
See also: "Independence Day."
See also: "Jurassic Park."
OK, so the last one doesn't have any aliens in it, but the velociraptors in that film follow the same principles. Anyway, you get the idea.
Basically, the smarter they are, the greater the threat, the higher the fright factor, the more scared that the audience will be that maybe this time, the Earth just won't make it out alive.
And then there are director Ivan Reitman's aliens, who are not stupid per se, but simply haven't had much a chance to evolve yet. You see, Reitman's aliens who pose some sort of the threat to this planet in his new comedy "Evolution" come by way of meteor as single-celled organisms and, as the audience discovers through a series of contrived revelations, are evolving at an extremely fast rate and will soon take over the world.
There is no cunning. There is no master plan for the invasion. There is simply the fact that the aliens will just keep on spreading. Scary, huh?
But of course, Reitman is not really trying to frighten us. This is a comedy. So, in a clever reversal of the alien-invasion movie, Reitman makes what is usually a battle of wits into a battle of dimwits. The threat of global disaster thus comes not from the aliens themselves but from the possibility that the small brigade of humans put in charge of saving the earth might be too stupid and incompetent to do so.
Leading the pack is David Duchovny in a wink-wink, elbow-elbow role as Dr. Ira Kane, a community college biology professor with former ties to the government, that is simply the actor's "X-Files" persona Fox Mulder, only without the suit and icy attitude.
See also: Orlando Jones as Harry, a geology prof and volleyball coach at the same college, who's too busy hitting on his students to save any planet.
See also: Seann William Scott as Wayne, an all-around flunkie and dim bulb who wants to be a fireman more than anything.
And finally there is Julianne Moore as Dr. Allison Reed in a rare (for a reason) comedic role. Clarice Sterling taking pratfalls? It's a cute idea in theory, but the execution leaves the audience wanting. Wasn't Sandra Bullock available?
These characters move from loosely sketched scene to loosely sketched scene, growing more ridiculous as the situation surrounding them becomes more and more dire. And the disparity is a difficult one for the audience to resolve. These characters act without reason and chatter away endlessly about the most random of side plots. What is Dr. Reed like in bed? How about a visit from Ira's ex-girlfriend? And therein lies the joke, I guess.
In a serious dilemma with serious consequences, let us delight in how not seriously these characters are treating the situation, how they seem to not even be paying attention. The end of the world is indeed a laughing matter. Again, this is all very funny at a pitch meeting but the execution leaves more to be desired.
The problem is that Reitman wants it both ways. He has to resolve the plot - the world must be saved by the film's conclusion - while at the same time, he wants us to laugh at his character's seeming ambivalence. The result is a film with bipolar disorder - serious one moment, funny the next, scary the next - and the narrative is not strong enough to smoothly envelop these disparities.
To the film's credit, Duchovny and Jones provide some humorous moments as their bickering best buds routine coheres into believable onscreen chemistry. The heart of this movie was in those dual performances, but it got lost among so many sight gags and fart jokes that - in the end- make the audience actually wish it was the end of the world.
