What started off as a sci-fi horror turned into one of the best sci-fi comedies ever when it dropped 25 years ago. Being true to its title, Ivan Reitman’s “Evolution” proves that nothing ever stays the same – including story.
In 2001, the film landscape didn’t exactly reward fans who liked funny sci-fi. “Ghostbusters” felt like a fever dream from the long-gone ’80s, while “Men in Black II” was still a year away from sliding into theatres and making your neck work.
It was one or the other here; you either watched Steven Spielberg’s stellar “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” for sci-fi, or Tom Green’s gross-out “Freddy Got Fingered” for comedy. That is until “Evolution” fused the two genres and demonstrated that it’s all chemistry, baby!
The story begins with a meteor crashing in the desert of Glen Canyon, Arizona. Poor wannabe firefighter Wayne Grey (played by the Stifmeister himself, Seann William Scott) witnesses it as the giant rock wrecks his car, so he calls in the authorities.
Community college professors Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and Harry Block (Orlando Jones) head over to the site and spot a trace of liquid near the meteor, so they take back a sample to the lab to monitor and analyse.
What they discover is that there are alien microorganisms splitting and evolving at a rapid pace in Earth’s atmosphere. Nobel Prize incoming – well, at least in Harry’s mind.
Trouble arrives when the military and government descend on the site. Once they discover there could be aliens involved, the bureaucrats take over, denying access to Ira and Harry and even stealing their research and samples. The problem is the bureaucrats aren’t aware of the severity of the issue, while Ira, Harry, and Wayne uncover more facts about the circumstances. To put it simply, the extra-terrestrials are evolving at astronomical speed and are days away from taking over the country then the planet. Friendly alien creatures, these are not.
Expectedly, the military makes everything worse and decides that nuking E.T.’s uglier cousins is the only answer… or the next best thing — they want to use “Napalm. Lots and lots of napalm”. Bad decision, since heat only accelerates the evolutionary cycle of the extra-terrestrials, so it’s up to the little people to clean up the government’s mess when the bureaucratic bozos want to live in the “find out” stage of this ordeal.
The real solution to everybody’s woes happens to be Head & Shoulders. Yes, the shampoo brand, which makes for one of the most inventive uses of product placement in a movie ever. Sadly cleaning the alien’s hair isn’t the solution; it’s actually the selenium sulphide found in Head & Shoulders formula, which is toxic to the creatures.
From a tonal perspective, “Evolution” could have been much different. Initially, the first draft of the script veered more into sci-fi horror territory. “Don Jakoby, who wrote the original draft, had written [‘Invaders from Mars’ and ‘Arachnophobia’], so if you think [those films] and then think about ‘Evolution’ taking place in a period of a few days, that was sort of the tone,” co-screenwriter David Diamond told Forbes. “It was scary, action-packed, and cool, but certainly not what Ivan Reitman was gonna do with the movie.”
According to Diamond, Reitman’s instruction for him and co-writer David Weissman was to turn the story into something akin to “Ghostbusters”. They certainly understood the assignment, as it isn’t too difficult to pick up the similarities in the story, especially in terms of how Ira, Harry, and Wayne aren’t taken seriously by authorities and end up having to take matters into their own hands, regardless of the consequences. The discovery of Head & Shoulders as a weapon feels an awful lot like the “crossing the streams” moment, and the inclusion of Dan Aykroyd as Governor Lewis is simply the perfect tip of the hat to Ray Stantz and the gang.
Diamond and Weissman didn’t only take inspiration from “Ghostbusters”, though, since “Men in Black” also peeks its head in here from time to time. From the alien designs to the ridiculous scientific explanations, it’s all hokey – but in the kind of way that makes you chuckle and shake your head about how utterly silly and entertaining it all is.
Looking back, “Evolution” values its comedic elements more than sci-fi logic, but it works in the context of the film. There’s a laugh-until-you-snort scene in which Harry gets an alien bug inside of him. In a horror flick like “Alien”, the critter would burst out of his stomach in a cacophony of blood and screams. Here, the doctor flips Harry over on the table and tells him that he’s going in with a pair of forceps to snatch the culprit. “I think it got the movie made,” Weissman said. “Ivan referenced it right after reading the script as one of the funniest scenes he’d ever read.”
As funny as the script is, it would mean absolutely nothing without the right performers. Fortunately, Reitman assembled a crew where chemistry is everything. From Seann William Scott playing Wayne, a less-horny but equally boobish version of Stifler, to Ted Levine’s turn as the straight-laced General Russell Woodman and Orlando Jones’ impeccable wit as Harry Block, everybody brought their A-game.
However, it would be remiss to not single out David Duchovny for special praise. As Fox Mulder in “The X-Files”, he showed glimpses of his humorous side, but it would always be reined in before it escalated. Here, as Ira Kane, he’s able to let loose and demonstrate the deadpan qualities that have served him well in his career.
Despite all the right molecules, “Evolution” didn’t turn out to be an explosive hit in 2001. It’s considered a box office flop, making just over $98 million from a $80 million budget, and its reviews were tepid to say the least. Even so, it received a short-lived animated series, while the opinions changed over the years.
It’s remarkable, and ironic that through the passage of time, perceptions of “Evolution” evolved from misguided misfire to an underrated sci-fi comedy gem. Maybe viewers just couldn’t stop scratching their heads over what they were seeing at the time – until they discovered the benefits of Head & Shoulders, of course.