Evolution

Despite protestations to the contrary from the fim’s makers, Evolution is essentially Ghostbusters with aliens. Taken as such, it’s nowhere near as winning as the 1984 original, but it still represents a welcome back-to-basics move for director Ivan Reitman, whose recent career reads like a list of atrocities fully deserving of UN intervention (Junior, Father’s Day, Six Fucking Days And Seven Fucking Nights)

Ira Kane (Duchovny) is a long-since-disgraced government scientist who has wound up teaching in Arizona following a thoroughly dishonourable discharge. When a meteorite lands in the immediate vicinity, Ira and his geologist buddy Harry (Jones) investigate, only to discover single-celled organisms which are evolving at a rate of knots. In next to no time, Arizona is plagued by all manner of crocodile-like and ape-like creatures, and only Ira and Harry, together with goofy government-filled operative Allison (Moore) and failed local firefighter Wayne (Scott) can stop the ensuing chaos.

Evolution frequently wastes its inherent comic potential: the plot should afford Duchovny the opportunity to subvert his ultra-earnest X-Files role, but it never really gets there. Still, the entire enterprise is so relentlessly silly – featuring as much goo as possible, simple running gags (Moore keeps tripping up) and the by now traditional sphincter set-piece – that it’s hard to deny the thing’s blockbuster potential. Duchovny is no Bill Murray, but he and Jones make for a likeable central pairing – and while hardly a feast for the brain to engage with, this is impossible to argue with as special-effects summer extravaganzas go.