In 2001 I got a little taste of a little movie called evolution. I knew next to nothing about the flick other than that it was directed by Ivan Reitman and starred David Duchovny, Orlando Jones and Julianne Moore, which meant I found myself in the rare situation of being completely blind in a movie walk. Although my expectations weren’t very high, I liked the clever little comedy for its broad humor and goofy tone. Sure, a lot of the big moments fall awry, but there’s still enough good material in Reitman’s sci-fi comedy to make it worth watching.
What does of course evolution such a delight is to see Duchovny in a rare comedic performance, a far cry from his cooler characters from Agent Mulder, Hank Moody, and Jake Winters That X files, calibration, and The Red Shoe Diaries. The actor plays the straight man for Jones’ manic science professor but still gets lots of dry jokes to keep his performance from being lost amid the rather large production.
Check out some fun parts of evolution for a few examples of Duchovny’s weird timing:
Unfortunately, evolution was barely able to recoup its expensive $ 80 million price tag and was largely (and wrongly) considered a Ghost hunters Discount. Such criticisms are more than valid 20 years later. The film, in fact, follows the Ghostbusters template all the way through to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man style with a large, blob-like starfish, without adding much to the formula. Julianne Moore is a miscast, Orlando Jones is a little over the top, and most of the humor comes from Seann William Scott’s all-too-familiar Stifler-like character.
Even so, Duchovny enjoys the opportunity to venture into comic strip territory. Never in the history of the film has a star exclaimed the line: “Give me back my friend, you big sphincter!” With such satisfaction and conviction. It’s a shame Hollywood didn’t notice because evolution clearly shows that he has what it takes to carry a comedy in the right circumstances.
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If you need more persuasion, check out the short but memorable role of the actor in. on Zoolander:
Or, if you’re okay with simple, light-hearted entertainment, head to Duchovny in come back to mewhere he played the rom-com game alongside Minnie Driver:
On the other hand, the audience may simply refuse to accept Duchovny as anything less than a cool cat looking for extraterrestrial life or fighting drugs or sex addiction. Definitely don’t cry too much for the actor who made quite a career with a variety of unique material. Or maybe he was funny all along and we just didn’t see it … maybe Duchovny’s biggest comedy appearance was out there all along as the following video proves, and we just never saw it. That would be fun now!
