Evolution
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I saw Evolution at the Dreamland Theatre in Nantucket where I have been watching movies since the 1960's. Let's just say that this wasn't the best film I've seen there.  Ivan Reitman has directed some really funny films including two of my favorites, Ghostbusters and Dave.  These two movies had great casts lead by Bill Murray and Kevin Kline, but funny as these guys are, they still need some material.  These films also had great scripts. You just don't hear lines like, ``Cats and Dogs living together," anymore!  Evolution has a good cast but unfortunately Reitman and his writers have run out of ideas.  I can hear the meeting now where they pitched the idea for Evolution, ``It's like Ghostbusters except they have to deal with all sorts of crazy aliens like in Men In Black."  A meteorite crashes to Earth and two community college science teachers (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones) take a few pieces of it back to their lab and start growing microbes. Unfortunately, these microbes are evolving at a very fast rate and a huge array of alien life-forms soon appears.  Soon, the military is involved and the Center for Disease Control sends in one of their scientists (Julianne Moore).  Chaos ensues and needless to say, the military can't handle it so our heroes must save the day.  One thing that separates Evolution from many other movies of the genre is that early on, Jones says, ``I'm not doing that. I've seen that movie. The black guy gets it first."  Unfortunately, the characters had not seen one important film, The Andromeda Strain, which might have saved them a lot of trouble.  But then there wouldn't have been much of a plot.  Come to think of it, there isn't much of a plot anyway.  Hence, the problem with Evolution.  Duchovny and Jones make the most of their parts and have a good chemistry together.  They provide most of the good moments in this film.  Moore is a bit wasted here. As the NY Times reviewer says,`` 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."  I know that right about now most of you are saying, ``Geoff doesn't like comedies."  In fact, the two people I went with liked it a lot more than I did.  What can I say? Opinions differ. But if you want to see a combination of Ghostbusters and Men In Black, rent them both the same night.