An Original Idea Is Alien to ‘Evolution’

Forced like chopped meat through a flagrantly self-reverential “Ghostbusters” template, “Evolution” seems to be producer-director Ivan 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.

The basic idea is hardly original (“Men in Black” is evoked more than once, “Jurassic Park” every time a dinosaur appears) but rife with possibilities of the human, if not extraterrestrial, variety. It’s your basic shmoes-versus-the-state story: An asteroid crashes into the Arizona desert, bringing with it a strain of organisms that proceed to evolve at a rate beyond human imagination. “What took us 200 million years has taken them a few hours,” Dr. Ira Kane (David Duchovny) tells his colleague, adjunct professor and full-time operator Harry Block (Orlando Jones). The government, of course, is useless; only Ira and Harry--not just a geologist, but the women’s volleyball coach!--can save the world.

Someone must have thought it beyond witty casting the very wry “X-Files” star Duchovny as a community college professor battling military intelligence over an alien invasion. (“I know those people,” he says, in the movie’s one obvious “X” reference.) But Duchovny is no Bill Murray, and Julianne Moore, as Ira’s antagonist-heartthrob, Allison, is no Lucille Ball. A government epidemiologist, Allison affects a klutziness that may have been meant as a humanizing element by Reitman, but which comes off instead as a way of deflating both her confidence and competence. As the movie’s lone woman (human woman, at any rate), she’s a clumsy joke.

Most of the film’s awkward moves are far more blatant: When Duchovny, who has established Ira as a rough diamond among Arizona rubes, drops his pants and moons the Army general (Ted Levine) who’s kicked him off the asteroid site, it shows how desperate Reitman is to find a laugh.

For the most part, “Evolution” is an opportunity to 1) startle us with scary monsters jumping at the screen, which works every time; 2) make Reitman seem hip to younger audiences, who’ll find the brainless pool boy played by Seann William Scott (“Road Trip,” “American Pie”) sadly familiar, and 3) take the gross-out devices of “Men in Black” and “Ghostbusters” to weird extremes.

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Jones is a particularly frustrating aspect to “Evolution,” giving every indication that he knows how to deliver funny material, if only he had some funny material to deliver. Reitman’s previous movies have lived and died by their stars (“Dave,” for instance, which would have been nowhere without Kevin Kline), but he now seems intent on humiliating them--as do writing partners David Diamond and David Weissman (of the hapless “Family Man”) and their temporary accomplice, Don Jakoby (“Arachnophobia”).

When Jones’ character gets a particularly nasty flying alien beneath his skin, he undergoes a rectal probe that seems to go on for weeks. Funny? Sure, and it makes as much sense as the scene with Duchovny, Jones and Scott riding through the desert singing “Play That Funky Music, White Boy.” Why are they part of the movie? Because Reitman, like the growth rate of his aliens, is completely out of control.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for crude and sexual humor, and for sci-fi action. Times guidelines: The jokes are more locker room than sexual; lots of monsters jump out at you but otherwise not very scary.

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‘Evolution’

David Duchovny: Ira

Julianne Moore: Allison

Orlando Jones: Harry

Seann William Scott: Wayne

Ted Levine: Gen. Woodman

Dan Aykroyd: Gov. Lewis

DreamWorks Pictures and Columbia Pictures present a Montecito Pictures production, released by DreamWorks. Director Ivan Reitman. Producer Ivan Reitman, Daniel Goldberg, Joe Medjuck. Executive producers Tom Pollock, Jeff Apple, David Rodgers. Screenplay by David Diamond & David Weissman and Don Jakoby, based on a story by Jakoby. Cinematographer Michael Chapman. Editor Sheldon Kahn, Wendy Greene Bricmont. Production designer J. Michael Riva. Costume designer Aggie Guerard Rogers. Visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett. Music John Powell. Art director Richard F. Mays. Set decorator Lauri Gaffin. Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes.