Evolution (Wide Screen) > Reviews > Head and Shoulers shampoo saves the world

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	great special effects, good acting, funny jokes
Disadvantages:	Obvious product placement !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Things were starting to get a little desperate. I had got in from work at 2.30pm and had been pottering about ever since. I had done a little reading, some washing, a very small amount of ironing, I’d even tidied up a bit, but by 6.30pm I could begin to feel the boredom levels rising.

I looked around in a panic, what could I do to alleviate this boredom before it all became too much for me?

I looked at the TV pages and was horrified to see the usual selection of naff soap operas, fly on the wall dramas and ‘modern’ sit-com. Argghhhhhhh

How about a board game? Argghhhhhhhhh again

A walk? Nah

Surf the net? Nope, not tonight Josephine.

I had already eaten, so a restaurant was out, I’ve got to be up at 0430 so the pub didn’t seem the best idea, there was only one thing for it, that rarest of events for me lately, a trip to the cinema!

I had a browse around the what’s on guide for my local cinema, and the results were none too promising. Yes there was the usual collection of Hollywood “Blockbusters” but top be honest they all looked all effects and no substance (Pearl Harbour, Tomb Raider and The Mummy Returns, need I say more?). There were a couple of rather dodgy looking comedies, including a film described as the American Bridget Jones, only no funny, or Evolution. Needless to say, out of the choices available I went for Evolution. It looked quite harmless, and as all films at the Reading Showcase on a Tuesday are £3.50, It wasn’t too much of a risk.

And I’m glad to say it was very good indeed!

This is a genuinely funny movie, with some excellent over-acting, great special effects and wonderfully funny jokes, without ever feeling forced like some comedies. OK, there are lots of set piece jokes where you are meant to laugh, all comedies are full of them, but the jokes in Evolution seem to come naturally, rather than being artificial (as if a comedy about an out of control alien life form could ever be artificial!)

And there you have the basis of the plot.

Hold on a bit, let me explain some more.

One dark and stormy night (ok it wasn’t stormy, but it was definitely dark) a meteorite lands in the deserts of Arizona. By an unfortunate coincidence, Wayne Green (Sean William Scott) happens to be ‘rescuing’ a rubber doll from a burning shed at the time (you'll have to watch the film to get that one explained!), and nearly gets very squished. Luckily for poor Wayne, he manages to get out of the way just in time, unluckily for Wayne his car gets totalled by the rock, which crashes into one of the many caverns littering the area.

Thus the next morning the local member of the United States Geological Survey, recently signed up by Internet and a teacher of Geology at the local college, one Harry Block (Orlando Jones), is dispatched to the scene to check things out, accompanied by a biology lecturer Ira Kane (David Duchovny) to ensure all angles are covered.

As you may have gathered, they don’t just find any old meteorite, but one that seems to be bleeding, how bizarre! So they take a few samples and totter off.

Being the diligent biologist, Ira gets his microscope out and has a peek, and is rather shocked by what he finds! Alien life! Blimey, all those years searching for alien life in the X-files, and here he is with irrefutable proof within 20 minutes of the start of the movie! Wow!

This alien life seems fairly simple, just a bunch of single celled organisms, nothing to get too excited about, except they are multiplying awfully fast, and soon develop into multi-celled organisms. This might not sound like much, but that evolutionary step took millions of years on Earth, yet here it happens in a few hours!

And these aliens keep evolving, and evolving, and evolving. First into some rather ugly and slimly looking flat worms, that can’t breathe oxygen, then onto some rather cute creepy crawlies, then a rather less cute creepy crawly and so on and so on. Eventually we meet those at the top of the evolutionary chain, a flying dinosaur type monster with a taste for nubile young shoplifters, and the piece de resistance, the rather unbelievable, final scene stealing wonder monster, wow!

During this evolution, which doesn’t take long (Darwin would be rolling in his grave) we have the intervention of the military, a budding romance, the stooge pool boy come good, and a rather nasty incident of bug up the bum (ouch!). OK, it’s hardly the most realistic of plots, but then even a ‘factual’ film such as Pearl Harbour doesn’t always ring true!

There are some good acting performances. David Duchovny seems to be the American version of Hugh Grant, I don’t mean he plays a stuttering Englishman with floppy hair, just that he seems to always play the same character, and play it well. He plays the deadpan biology teacher with a wry sense of humour, very much like Mulder in the later series of X-files.

Orlando Jones really hams it up as Harry Block (remember, that’s Block, not black!) He seems to be playing like Chris Rock, overacting to his hearts content, but it definitely works alongside his steady stooge Duchovny. And then there is the love interest, provided by Juliette Moore as the rather unbalanced (in a literal sense!) Dr. Alison Reed. She plays a rather accident prone Government scientist with a lovely taste in garters and a twinkling in her eye for the aforementioned Biology teacher. I don’t know what she sees in him!

There is another good performance from Sean William Scott, the guy that played the nasty one in American Pie, and even a cameo from Bill Murray of Ghostbusters fame (incidentally the movie is directed by Ivan Reitman, director of the aforementioned spooky comedy!) and some marvellous special effects from CGI. All except that rather over the top final monster which is less than convincing. But hey, all the others looked pretty good!

So, we have some great comedy moments, good acting, excellent special effects and even a couple of moments that made me jump out of my skin and led to hospital treatment for broken fingers on my grlfriends hand!

Some people seem to have been less than impressed as they suggest the film is very un-intelligent and predictable, and OK, it doesn;t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out how it all ends, but I found it a very harmless film, funny without being forced and some excellent moments, top entertainment.

I’ll leave you pondering where Head and Shoulders fits into all this. You’ll have to see the movie to find out what I mean!