Starring: David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones
Director: Ivan Reitman
Rated: M15+
IN 1958, Steve McQueen, in his first starring role, appeared in The Blob, a film about a meteorite that lands on earth carrying a protoplasm that grows larger as its eats more people.
When I saw The Blob in 1968, I was terrified. If I saw it now I guess I would find it hilarious.
Evolution is The Blob’s 21st century cousin. Previously sacked from US defence scientific intelligence and now teaching at a local university, Ira (David Duchovny) is brought in to explain the protoplasm a meteorite carried within it when it crashed into an Arizona desert. Dr Allison (Julianne Moore) and the army are soon on site and want all the credit for the discovery.
Ira and his colleague Harry (Orlando Jones) have begun preparing their speech for the Nobel Prize. When the protoplasm’s cells divide at such a rapid rate that it begins to ape evolution of life on earth, Allison, Jones and Ira join forces to save the day.
Director Ivan Reitman made Ghostbusters in 1984. It was a riot. He followed that up with the much less funny Ghostbusters II in 1989. Evolution should have been called The Blob II or Ghostbusters III. Either way this film is the least funny of the trilogy. It’s clear Reitman and writers David Diamond, David Weissman and Don Jakoby have run out of ideas when they resort to flatulence, bottoms and faeces to try and get laughs. This film is really a study in abjection because at one stage it rains faeces on Ira, Allison and Harry. Evolution is indebted to the horror genre more than to the screwball comedy.
David Duchovny and Julianne Moore have completely wasted their talents here. It does not show their diversity as comic actors, it just demonstrates their poor judgment. The extraordinary special effects are the only redeeming feature of this dreary waste of time.
