WARNING: SPOILERS!

(1/8/01)

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A good comedy can be salubrious in the post-holiday lull. And so I lucked out with EVOLUTION. A smart script that brought together a diverse, fetching group of movie people.

EVOLUTION has interesting Homo sapiens kneading its dough. Ivan Reitman directed it. David Duchovny and Julianne Moore star. If the movie turns out to be like the script, it could be a career boost to all three.

Reitman will have his first solid film since DAVE. Though the GHOSTBUSTERS director was a godlike blockbuster-maker in the 80s and early 90s, his recent films (FATHERS DAY and SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS) have been terrible. Hes relied too heavily on aged actors and the unfunny ramblings of PARENTHOOD screenwriters Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz.

David Duchovny will prove he can hit it with audiences outside THE X-FILES (and hopefully put to sleep the embarrassments PLAYING GOD and RETURN TO ME).

And Julianne Moore, possibly the greatest living actress, will have a film out that people actually see! Shes been in small, intelligent films for many years, but besides the occasional foray into big-budget fare (like THE LOST WORLD) Juliannes amazing work goes unseen. (One of the many films that fit into that category is THE END OF THE AFFAIR, which was the best film of 1999.) I suppose, though, that HANNIBAL should do this for Julianne more so than EVOLUTION.

As they say, heres the skinny: A meteor crashes in the Arizona desert. Two professors from the community college, Ira Kane and Harry Block (an homage to DECONSTRUCTING HARRY?), are the first on the scene. They are stunned (at least Ira is; Harry isnt much of a scientist) to see, when they examine their samples, that this extraterrestrial thing is rapidly multiplying. It is doing what took us millions of years to do in a few hours.

As with all strange phenomena in movies, though the professors try to keep it under wraps, the government gets involved and takes over the operation. The government scientists have their heads up their butts (of course), dont see whats happening, fail to realize that the beings (worms, then lizards, then birds, then apes) are dangerous, dont warn anyone when the animals begin to kill people, and are blind to the obvious: this thing is going to evolve till its the superior being and wipe us out.

Heres the cool twist to all this, though: The original script was written by Don Jakoby (VAMPIRES). And it was rewritten by David Diamond and David Weissman (the guys who wrote THE FAMILY MAN). This is one of the rare cases where the reinvention/rewriting of a script works toward its benefit. What you have here with EVOLUTION is a real sci-fi tale that could have been told without the comedy (and it was; Jakobys script was dead serious). What the two Davids do is keep Jakobys us-versus-them, save-the-world plot and inject it with the humor it needs. These writers are doing what we would be doing in the theater had the script been kept as it was: cracking jokes about what was going on.

What makes this work where others like it (combining comedy with another genre) stumbled is that we dont have a sci-fi/action writer trying to write jokes. And we dont have comedy writers trying to write meaningful sci-fi. With EVOLUTION you get an unforced union that elevates its value tenfold.

(For all you screenplay-geeks out there like me: David Diamond and David Weissman wrote THE FAMILY MAN, which starred Tea Leoni, whos married to...David Duchovny...whos starring in...EVOLUTION. So theyre working with the same writers. How cute.)

EVOLUTIONs humor is fairly subtle, and it feels nicely real. As if we were viewing just how normal people would react to alien life forms and birdlike creatures carrying off young girls. Theyd be scared into a joke and propelled into action. (The two Davids have Julianne Moores doctor falling for Ira. The romance is pretty standard. But they score points with sly one-liners that thankfully never decay into sitcom-level, laugh-track-enhanced stupidity.)

EVOLUTIONs humor is subtle, but it has a scene that could potentially be as widely famous as the zipper mishap in THERES SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. Its easily as funny and if the actor playing the role of Harry hits it right, and Ivan Reitman nails it, it could be the trailer-piece that makes the movies money back.

Now its time to stop all this fawning and get back to reality. EVOLUTION is not without its flaws. The biggest being that it feels like a rip-off of the X-FILE movie. Even down to that white geometric dome glowing in the night. This is seriously baffling since David Duchovny is starring. For one reason, because youd think hed want to get away from this. And also because as soon as you see him -- in this environment -- youre going to think of the show.

I suppose the plots mediocrity is beside the point and the main reason it was turned into a comedy. The writers are fearless enough here to even include a SCREAM-ish wink and have the characters discuss how other movie characters battled their Blobs and evil beings.

EVOLUTION is an easy, harmless read with enough brains to certainly arouse approbation. And while it isnt the perfect meld that Robert Gordons GALAXY QUEST was, it does feature an ending that, if CGI is up for it, will captivate and make you leave with an ear-to-ear grin on your mug. (To say the least, its much more elaborate than laser-fried marshmallow.)

If they pull their own weight, it will give Reitman the hit hes been thirsting for and give Duchovny the reason hes wanted -- that is, success at the B.O. -- to leave THE X-FILES.

As for the people who have to smack down the nine bucks (you and me, friends): if Reitman brings to the table the same shrewdness and willingness as the two Davids, it should entertain the hell out of us.

-- Darwin Mayflower.