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Review: Evolution
Our main characters are misfit scientists led by Duchovny who is as stone cold as ever playing Ira Kane. Along with the Make Seven Up Yours guy, they are teachers at the local community college. Ira has a cloudy history and Mr. 7-Up has no future (unless you count coaching the women's volleyball team). They don't quite fit in at the university, and they are busy hitting on the ladies (no, they don't administer shock therapy based psychic tests, but they might as well have).
So we've also got Stiffler's Mom's Son Seann William Scott playing the dummy wanna be firefighter who discovers the meteor that crashes out in a field in their desert town. The scientists go to the library and collect slime samples. Oh wait, no. They go to a cave and collect biological samples. Sorry, my bad. It's immediately apparent that the meteor contained some strange new life form (10 base pairs!) that evolves much faster then our pathetic (4 pairs!) earth life forms do.
Of course the government has to be called in led by a mean old general and the beautiful Julianne Moore who's slumming it playing Allison Reed, the military scientist who reveals that Duchovny and her go way back. She's probably the best actor but she doesn't really do much funny stuff except fall and bang into doors. I found it super strange watching her act this way. I hope she was paid very well for this part. Or at the very least, had tons of fun making it.
The plot progresses obviously with... Evolution! The alien life forms evolve from yellow mushrooms and worms into new exciting computer animated monsters. Our trio of heros continue to fight the authorities as well as these strange new monsters that wreak havoc on the small town. And despite the differences between Dana and Venkman, the sexual tension continues to grow. A great minor part by Dan Akroyd provides several good laughs- his delivery can still make a scene even when his lines aren't the best.
The computer animation and special effects is all reasonably good. But I didn't feel like it broke ground like it's stepbrother did. In Ghostbusters, the groundbreaking special effects advanced an entertaining plot and developed interesting characters. In Evolotion, effects no better then any film we've seen in the last few years advance a tedious plot and develop bland characters with obvious quirks taped onto them.
Allright, after all that cynicism, I have to say that I actually enjoyed a lot of the movie. Besides the obvious numerous parallels between this film and that "Other" movie, we've got a few pretty good action sequences, and a ton of jokes, and some of them are funny. Some of them don't involve asses, butts, colons, or farting! And the movie builds up to an exciting climax where the good guys must execute the biggest butt joke of all and destroy the stay puft marshmellow man, or their town is doomed.
But I laughed out loud many times. The movie has many awkward parts (random pauses for laughter which never came in the audience I was sitting in, characters explaining things like idiots which is supposed to be funny, but isn't) but check your brain at the door, forget you saw Ghostbusters, and have some fun. This film isn't going to innovate special effects. It's not going to have characters that we're going to remember in 15 years. It's not going to have scenes that you and a group of friends can quote verbatim after 3 beers. But you'll probably have fun for an hour or so. And the effects are good enough that it's worth seeing on the big screen.
In short, if you miss it, don't sweat it. But if you go, you'll probably have fun. And try to count the ghostbusters parallels while you go. Then make a mad lib and construct your own Ivan Reitman special effects blockbuster script and see if you can sell it to Dreamworks.
Oddball Offtopic Side Note For the first time ever in Holland, a total stranger noticed the Slashdot t-shirt I was wearing and asked for an autograph when I fessed up to who I was. Even tho he was the dude selling the tickets, it didn't get me in for free :)
One of the clips showed a weird multi-segmented bug with stilt-like legs, very similar to one of the weird fossils in the burgess shale.
I think I know the one you're referring to -- it has stiff spines on one side and little knobblies on the other. The story I heard about it is that scientists decided the spines were the legs and came up with all kinds of wacky theories about what kind of environment such legs would be advantageous in.
Until one day some guy came along and said "Fellas, that's the top half." And all kinds of theories went bye-bye as biologists scratched their collective beards and went "y'know..."
I have no idea if it's true or not, but That's What I Was Told (m*tt*!)
-- Old Man Kensey
Perhaps he was a very happy man who lived in the swamp?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
with a minute off to check spelling!
Come on, give him a break. That's the most time Taco's ever given over to spell-checking what he's posting.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
YES!!!! There it is. Completely forgot he had that small part is that classic movie. Snootch.
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
Taco, man, come on. The dude's name is Orlando Jones. Funny guy from The Replacements and not a bad actor. Next time, might want to do a little more research, as that type of thing makes it look like you wrote the review in 2 minutes, with a minute off to check spelling!
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
I'd coach women's volleyball anyday :D
In fact, if you want a CGI vehicle, watch a real one. For all of the critic's complaints about butt-jokes in Shrek, I thought the movie was great. The script wasn't up to Toy Story standards, but the rendering was the best I'd ever seen, the sound track is fantasitic, and the parody jokes were hysterical. So, for an anal-fetish CGI move, skip Evoloution and hit the kid's movie instead. -m
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It is still the dark of night.
Life on earth has four different nucleotide bases in DNA/RNA, meaning that we have _two_ different base pairs (C-G and T-A, or U-A in RNA). So I guess that the goofy movie aliens actually have twenty different bases and ten base pairs? Hmm, I kinda wanted to see this movie, but all the reviews have said that it's either so-so or incredibly awful. Guess I'll wait for the video...
Please, if they're trying to get it right, like Mission to Mars (ugh! the science in that gave me a headache!) we can have this discussion. But for films involving Sean Aston Williams Scott McBain, can we please dispense with them?
toeslikefingers.com - because
Yes, the complete absence of foreigners in a foreign-led and run war wasn't conspicuous, was it?
toeslikefingers.com - because
Actualy there are still 4. C-G and G-C are unique. That's because only one side of the DNA ever codes for anything useful. The other side is the negative so copies can be made. (Note the 'useful' side can be different for different genes) so (A-T)(C-G)(A-T) and (A-T)(G-C)(A-T) code for two completely different amino acids. Each base pair still encodes for two bits of data, not one.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Taco's from Holland, Michigan.
What do you call what N611FE did in EWR in 1997?
I mean, okay, it was landing already, and "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing," but still...
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Hallucigenia sparsa. The Smithsonian seems to agree with you: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/shale/phallu.htm.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
is this.....is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
To be fair, I am going to see this movie just for Julianne - she rules. Her role in Magnolia was a revelation. But it should be clarified, that she does a ton of comic work, and anyone who is interested should check out her biography on imdb.
is this.....is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
Ducovny turns on his computer after finding his laboratory wrecked. After entering a password, his computer says "Searching for files..." "Files not found!" I believe after that he makes the remark about them stealing his "hard drive and JPEG files"
"No one's really gonna be free until nerd persecution ends" -- Gilbert, Revenge of the Nerds
Saw the movie last night with my 3 kids. Not particularly impressed but there were some funny moments here and there. The one thing I did notice was the obvious references to 2001. The way the meteor gets implanted into the ground makes it look like a monolith. The clean room suits look like the space suits that Dave wore. And the evolved guerillas look a lot like those apes near the beginning of 2001. Any other 2001 references that I missed?