Evolution

Name: Evolution
Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy
Released: June 8, 2001
Duration: 101 min
Rating: 40
Cast: David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones

2001

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 92 Ratings

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6.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 92 Ratings

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Evolution

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Movie Details & Credits

DreamWorks Distribution | Release Date: June 8, 2001 | PG-13

Starring: David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones

Summary: This comedy follows the chaos that ensues when a meteor hits the Earth carrying alien life forms that give new meaning to the term "survival of the fittest." (Dreamworks SKG)

Director: Ivan Reitman

Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Comedy

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 101 min

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Critic Reviews

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Visually witty and even marvelous when it comes to depicting the spectacular creatures evolving at a speed previously known only in the Bible. Read full review

Mark Caro

This is "Ghostbusters" meets "Men in Black" meets a whole lot of butt humor.

Roger Ebert

It's not good, but it's nowhere near as bad as most recent comedies; it has real laughs, but it misses real opportunities. Read full review

Shawn Levy

Tired, clumsy and appallingly ugly to look at. Read full review

John Anderson

Reitman's attempt to show he can re-create the success of his biggest comedy ever. What he proves instead is that, given time and money, a comedy director can devolve into a lower life form. Read full review

Film.com Tom Keogh

An excruciating misfire. Read full review

Peter Rainer

Began life as a standard sci-fi horror script before mutating into the unfunny mess it now is. Read full review

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User Reviews

mbelizec

Sep 26, 2019

Very good sf comedy movie. Humor is casual and well made unlike many other comedy films who pushed too hard and created opposite effect. Also very good porformance by all actors.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

samelljoanne

Sep 16, 2020

One of the most entertaining movies that will keep you laughing! We need this in our lives sometimes, just to laugh and not be so serious. This movie will do that. Ca-Caw, Ca-Caw. Just sit back and enjoy it, we dont have to criticize everything!

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SSJGSSEVOLVED

May 2, 2020

Honestly this is probably one of my favorite comedies of all time I believe it would have done alot better if it was marketed better. It has an excellent cast of characters. If u want to shut your brain off for a while and just laugh this is that movie.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

eva3si0n

Jan 31, 2022

Evolution light Sci-Fi comedy. Here the whole plot is written to simplify life for the main characters, all conventions are violated every minute, all only for the sake of humor, which is really good here. It is worth noting the comedic role played by Julianne Moore. And although theEvolution light Sci-Fi comedy. Here the whole plot is written to simplify life for the main characters, all conventions are violated every minute, all only for the sake of humor, which is really good here. It is worth noting the comedic role played by Julianne Moore. And although the graphics for Sci-Fi are terrible, you get the fun from the film completely. I advise everyone to view.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

HellHoleHorror

Feb 16, 2022

It looked fine. The effects all looked convincing, the camera movement was good Hollywood and the clarity was good. I watched in stereo and it sounded good. Well balanced and crisp. The sound effects were slightly comedic and that suited perfectly. This is pure mind-relaxing cheese. It is aIt looked fine. The effects all looked convincing, the camera movement was good Hollywood and the clarity was good. I watched in stereo and it sounded good. Well balanced and crisp. The sound effects were slightly comedic and that suited perfectly. This is pure mind-relaxing cheese. It is a fun ride without being too memorable. It is pretty funny too. Not as good as Ghostbusters (1984). A fluffy journey that will make you smile but the memory won't last.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MovieMasterEddy

Apr 6, 2016

In "Evolution," Ivan Reitman's scattershot sci-fi comedy, Orlando Jones and David Duchovny play community college science instructors who happen upon an alien life-form that threatens to take over the world. A meteor has crashed into the Arizona desert. Examining the blue- green slime thatIn "Evolution," Ivan Reitman's scattershot sci-fi comedy, Orlando Jones and David Duchovny play community college science instructors who happen upon an alien life-form that threatens to take over the world. A meteor has crashed into the Arizona desert. Examining the blue- green slime that oozes from beneath its surface ("It's a rock that bleeds!"), Mr. Duchovny's character, a disgraced former Pentagon biologist named Ira Kane, discovers a colony of squirming star-shaped amoebas. These quickly mutate into more complex microorganisms, and then into computer-animated flatworms, insects, slimy lizards and angry primates.

The movie itself evolves in reverse, starting life as a moderately clever grab bag of high-concept noodling and half-witty badinage before descending into the primordial ooze of explosions and elaborate lower- intestinal gags. Mr. Duchovny and Mr. Jones make an amusing pair. Their interracial shtick is reminiscent of that of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in movies like "Silver Streak" and "Stir Crazy," but with the ragged anxiety of the late 70's smoothed over by the referential pop-culture cool of the present day.

Mr. Duchovny works hard to show some range beyond Agent Mulder's morbid intensity while still poking fun at his "X-Files" pedigree. "No government," Ira snaps when Harry suggests alerting the federal authorities about their discovery. "I know how those people operate." In his first scenes, Mr. Duchovny, who was a Ph.D. candidate in literature before becoming an alien tracker for the Fox network, captures the easygoing cynicism of the second-rate academic with frightening accuracy. Virtually everyone in his class gets an A, except for two obese brothers whose identical papers, titled "Cells Are Bad," earn them C-minuses.

But compared with Harry, Ira is Jonas Salk. Mr. Jones, best known as the demented pitchman for 7-Up, has quick timing and effortless improvisational flair, as well as an absolute, and in this case welcome, disregard for consistencies of character. Mr. Duchovny is constrained by a silly back story involving his mishandling of a Pentagon-sponsored anthrax vaccine (the laughs never stop!) and a love interest (played, for no good reason, by Julianne Moore); Mr. Jones is free to mug and gangle to his heart's content.

"I've seen this movie," he says as an alien bug crawls around inside his protective suit. "The black dude dies first." No, but he is subject to some fairly gross indignities: the bug must be extracted from his nether regions with forceps. Later, as payback, he administers a dandruff-shampoo enema to the shopping-mall-size mass of protoplasm that threatens civilization as we know it.

Unfortunately, civilization as we know it — that is, the highly evolved state of being that can find no better use for its biological advantages than the production of movies like this one — triumphs in the end. That dandruff shampoo appears to be a clever product placement, a moment that the rest of the movie, for all its ickily impressive digital flora and fauna and its cast of good sports, rarely lives up to.

Seann William Scott, in the designated-doofus (or David Arquette) role of a hapless aspiring firefighter, has some moments of slack-jawed charm. Ms. Moore falls down a lot and bumps into things. She's sexy, she's a scientist, she's clumsy; comic invention of this caliber makes you sorry the writers' strike never happened. From time to time an actor — usually Mr. Duchovny, Mr. Jones or Ted Levine, who plays a Pentagon heavy — will send up a tired action- movie or television-show commonplace: "Let's do this!" "It's payback time!" "Be careful out there!" But the spoofing of movie clichés has become a cliché in its own right, and beneath the hyperactivity of "Evolution" is an abiding laziness.

In a Darwinian universe, this is a dangerous thing. The biggest frustration in "Evolution" is that it squanders an interesting premise. The aliens evolve so quickly, compressing hundreds of millions of years into a few short days, that you can't help wondering what they will look like when they turn into us. But we never get past the angry apes.

Maybe in "Evolution II" the process of natural selection will be allowed to proceed further, and we can witness the full flowering of superior life-forms — or at least see whether they have it in them to make better movies than this one.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

The3AcademySins

Mar 23, 2020

Evolution is pretty terrible. Some of the acting is atrocious. Orlando Jones plays a different character in every shot. The direction can't decide whether this is a comedy or a horror. The fact that there were four different writers vying for control of the script is very apparent. However,Evolution is pretty terrible. Some of the acting is atrocious. Orlando Jones plays a different character in every shot. The direction can't decide whether this is a comedy or a horror. The fact that there were four different writers vying for control of the script is very apparent. However, the creature effects are really cool and well done for 2001. This movie does have moments of brilliance, which make me want to seek out Don Jakoby's original script, which was written as a very serious sci-fi horror flick, instead of this overly long Head and Shoulders commercial.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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91	#91 Most Discussed Movie of 2001
86	#86 Most Shared Movie of 2001