Evolution is a decent goofy Sci-Fi movie about an alien invasion that strikes in the deserts of Arizona. A couple of community college professors discover microscopic life living in a meteor that strikes just outside of town. The catch? The life may be small, but it's complex structure allows it to evolve at billions of times the rate that life on earth does. Soon they and the quirky community they live in are dealing with prehistoric critters rapidly evolving up the ladder towards intelligence, and consuming everything in their path as they do so.
Tl;dr, the film is decent but doesn't reach its full potential, and not all the humor/references in the film have aged gracefully, but if you can watch it for free on one of your streaming subscriptions it's not a bad lazy Sunday movie.
The plot is reasonably interesting for a movie that you've probably never heard of. Part of that is that the movie was released just a few months before 9/11, but even before the national tragedy kind of killed everyone's interest in watching lighthearted comedies for a while the movie wasn't doing especially well. It wasn't bombing, it more or less just broke even in theaters. The problem is it doesn't land its jokes or big scenes very well. I don't know if it's the directing or editing or even the delivery, but a lot of moments that feel like they could have been fun are reduced to a 'meh' feeling.
The comedic timing is often off, causing a lot of the big jokes to fall flat or only hit with a fraction of the energy it seems like they could have. Also, some of the jokes that were highlighted in previews at the time haven't aged well, like a scene in which David Duchovny's character states that he doesn't trust government agent types, a joke that references Duchovny's then-famous role as a government agent in the cultural phenomenon show 'The X-Files' . And finally, some of the cast like Dan Akroyd were clearly just doing someone a favor appearing in the movie and feel a little tacked on as their characters only appear in a few narrow scenes and aren't well integrated with the other characters stories.
All of which is too bad, because if you get past those issues the plot of the movie is pretty original and interesting in a don't-take-it-too-seriously kind of way. Even when they are turning into monsters the critters are usually brightly colored and cute in an alien muppet way, keeping the horror aspects from overwhelming the comedic. And the CGI, while obviously not anywhere near modern levels of quality, is still pretty decent.
The cast is also strong, including many actors who were relative unknowns when the movie was released but would go on to have successful careers. I liked the choice of making Duchovny and Jones scientific wannabees at a community college rather than Ivy league world famous types, which makes their characters more approachable, but I did feel that the movie left Moore a little underused. As the sole legitimate Ivy league world famous type, it might have been more fun to throw the big discoveries about the aliens to her and leave Duchovny and Jones in a more Rosencrantz and Guildenstern type of role, reacting to the big events rather than driving them. I might have also edited out Seann William Scott's role, or at least edited it to make him more integrated into the main characters lives. It seems obvious they wanted him as a third musketeer kind of thing but the connection between him and the professors feels super forced.
So it didn't completely bore me, but it didn't blow me away either. In the end it felt like there was maybe a better movie hiding somewhere in it, but I don't regret rewatching it.
Tl;dr, the film is decent but doesn't reach its full potential, and not all the humor/references in the film have aged gracefully, but if you can watch it for free on one of your streaming subscriptions it's not a bad lazy Sunday movie.
The plot is reasonably interesting for a movie that you've probably never heard of. Part of that is that the movie was released just a few months before 9/11, but even before the national tragedy kind of killed everyone's interest in watching lighthearted comedies for a while the movie wasn't doing especially well. It wasn't bombing, it more or less just broke even in theaters. The problem is it doesn't land its jokes or big scenes very well. I don't know if it's the directing or editing or even the delivery, but a lot of moments that feel like they could have been fun are reduced to a 'meh' feeling.
The comedic timing is often off, causing a lot of the big jokes to fall flat or only hit with a fraction of the energy it seems like they could have. Also, some of the jokes that were highlighted in previews at the time haven't aged well, like a scene in which David Duchovny's character states that he doesn't trust government agent types, a joke that references Duchovny's then-famous role as a government agent in the cultural phenomenon show 'The X-Files' . And finally, some of the cast like Dan Akroyd were clearly just doing someone a favor appearing in the movie and feel a little tacked on as their characters only appear in a few narrow scenes and aren't well integrated with the other characters stories.
All of which is too bad, because if you get past those issues the plot of the movie is pretty original and interesting in a don't-take-it-too-seriously kind of way. Even when they are turning into monsters the critters are usually brightly colored and cute in an alien muppet way, keeping the horror aspects from overwhelming the comedic. And the CGI, while obviously not anywhere near modern levels of quality, is still pretty decent.
The cast is also strong, including many actors who were relative unknowns when the movie was released but would go on to have successful careers. I liked the choice of making Duchovny and Jones scientific wannabees at a community college rather than Ivy league world famous types, which makes their characters more approachable, but I did feel that the movie left Moore a little underused. As the sole legitimate Ivy league world famous type, it might have been more fun to throw the big discoveries about the aliens to her and leave Duchovny and Jones in a more Rosencrantz and Guildenstern type of role, reacting to the big events rather than driving them. I might have also edited out Seann William Scott's role, or at least edited it to make him more integrated into the main characters lives. It seems obvious they wanted him as a third musketeer kind of thing but the connection between him and the professors feels super forced.
So it didn't completely bore me, but it didn't blow me away either. In the end it felt like there was maybe a better movie hiding somewhere in it, but I don't regret rewatching it.