A Ghostbusters reboot is a bit like when one of your adult friends has a birthday party at Showbiz Pizza – it seems like a fantastic idea in the group text, but then you show up and realize the games aren’t really that fun and the pizza tastes like wet paper and you’re so goddamn old that they don’t even call it Showbiz Pizza anymore. Some experiences can’t be replicated, but since that has literally never stopped anyone before, we’ve seen several attempts to shove Ghostbusters into a franchise box for which it has consistently proven it was never designed.
The June 2001 release of Evolution was one such attempt, once again putting Ivan Reitman at the helm of a comedy about a bunch of blue-collar guys tasked with saving the world from a supernatural disaster. The $80 million blockbuster came out a few weeks after I graduated high school, which means purchasing my ticket to go see it in theaters was one of the first decisions I made as a fully emancipated adult.
Evolution seemed to have all the elements that had made Ghostbusters a success – a high-concept premise, dazzling special effects, an impressive ensemble cast featuring some rising comedy stars, and a veteran comedy director with some bonafide classics under his belt. Sprinkle in some updated jokes and a contemporary soundtrack that replaces Ray Parker Jr. with Powerman 5000, and you’ve got the next evolution of Ghostbusters, baby! It’s right there in the title!
Unfortunately, Evolution was met with the same lukewarm reception that greeted Ghostbusters II a decade before and Ghostbusters 2016 a decade later, with mixed reviews and relatively meager box office receipts forever dooming it to the “swing and a miss” pile of would-be franchise-starters. Not even an animated spinoff show, which had worked wonders for the original Ghostbusters, could give Evolution any staying power. And while the film tends to get left out of the discussion because it’s not officially a Ghostbusters film, I think it secretly exemplifies many of the reasons why nobody has been able to successfully revive the Ghostbusters franchise since the 1980s.
First, a quick synopsis for those of you who have either never seen Evolution or are too terrified to revisit it. A meteor carrying extraterrestrial life crashes in the Arizona desert and begins generating its own ecosystem at an incredibly rapid rate, sort of like a comedy version of Alex Garland’s Annihilation. Burnout community college professors Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and Harry Block (Orlando Jones) lead the initial investigation, only to get sidelined by a U.S. military research team under the direction of the prickly General Woodman (Ted Levine) and the rigid but well-meaning Dr. Allison Reed (Julianne Moore). Through a series of affable hijinks, a goofball trainee firefighter named Wayne Grey (Seann William Scott) also gets involved. The aliens from the meteor mutate so quickly that they eventually become dangerous monsters, culminating in a thrilling showdown against a titanic single-cell organism that threatens to destroy the entire planet. Ira, Harry, Allison, and Wayne form an unlikely partnership to kill the humongous alien booger using the active ingredient in Head and Shoulders shampoo, saving the day in appropriately madcap fashion.
That sounds like the plot of a Ghostbusters film, right? Throw some solid jokes in there and we shouldn’t have any issues. So, why didn’t Evolution work? The biggest problem, and please understand how deeply it pains me to say this, is David Duchovny. As a lifelong Ghostbusters fan and someone who purchased more than one X-Files novel in middle school, the prospect of seeing Duchovny in a spiritual successor to the story of three New York City paranormal investigators who were ready to believe you had me hyped to the moon. The problem is, Duchovny is clearly meant to be Evolution’s Bill Murray, and he simply cannot fill that role.
That may seem like an unfair comparison, but Murray’s trademark low-key ironic energy is unquestionably the lightning in a bottle Evolution was trying to recapture by casting the famously mumblecore Duchovny. Moreover, they play similar characters – Ira Kane is a disillusioned academic trying to get by doing as little as possible teaching halfhearted classes at a college that seems content to enable him. Murray’s Peter Venkman was conducting highly questionable experiments to continue living off a research grant. The exact same “lazy grifter” energy is present in both men. And like Murray in the original Ghostbusters, Duchovny was the lone “star” in Evolution’s ensemble cast at the time of its release.
To his credit, Duchovny is willing to try anything. Judging by his performance here and in over a decade of The X-Files, Duchovny isn’t afraid of looking silly or foolish. He dives headlong into the gag every time, and I have a weird amount of respect for actors who are willing to do that. Unfortunately, while Duchovny is undeniably game, he doesn’t have good comedic instincts, let alone those of a veteran like Bill Murray. He commits to good bits just as completely as he does to bad ones, and he doesn’t seem to know the difference. Where a performer like Murray can salvage a sinking bit with as little as a slight adjustment to a line delivery or even a subtle facial expression, Duchovny is unable to call an audible or attempt a course-correction when a joke isn’t working. He has comedic charisma, but not the instinct to know when to deploy it. Consequently, many of his comedic scenes in Evolution are limited to mugging to the camera. He’s a guy who clearly likes comedy, and is excited to be making a comedy, but doesn’t really know how to be funny on his own. He needs direction, which is something none of the original Ghostbusters required. So, watching him engage in stilted banter with Harry or make awkward wisecracks to Dr. Reed about his bizarre history with an Anthrax vaccination tend to play out like watching a man drown with a pleasant smile on his face. It’s not what I wanted to see, and I would never accuse it of being funny, but he seems content with the result and I can’t fault him for that.
Another issue is that many of the characters in Evolution are too similar. Part of the charm and appeal of Ghostbusters is that each of the four ‘busters have a distinct personality – Venkman is the skeptic, Egon is the humorless nerd, Ray is the enthusiastic little kid, and Winston is the blue-collar dude willing to believe whatever spooktacular gibberish you say if there’s a steady paycheck involved. However, in Evolution, Ira and Harry are virtually identical characters. They’re essentially both Venkman, listless academic grifters settling into a life of comfortable mediocrity and carrying on inappropriate relationships with their students. There’s a little bit of Ray and Egon mixed in as well, as both Ira and Harry can get excited about the meteor’s discovery and get down to brass-tacks science whenever the script needs them to. Meanwhile, Wayne is both Winston (unassuming blue-collar guy) and Ray (jubilantly enthusiastic man-child), and Dr. Reed is a slightly more jaded Ray who also falls down a lot for no apparent reason.
While the ensemble cast of Ghostbusters was both more varied and more clearly defined, allowing for fans to latch on to their favorite character, Evolution’s core group of scientists is so muddled it’s difficult to identify a standout, let alone anyone with a distinct-enough personality to actually be called a favorite. Julianne Moore’s Dr. Reed is a particular conundrum, as it feels like she was originally written to be more of a straight character before a few hackneyed pratfalls were tacked on to give her a little more to do (the generic “she’s clumsy!” bit that women in comedies were frequently saddled with around this time). There’s also a series of confusingly horny quips between her and Ira that are at war with Moore and Duchovny’s utter lack of chemistry and consequently feel like the sweatiest afterthought in film history.
Speaking of which, Evolution doesn’t completely miss the mark with all of its Ghostbusters homages. In fact, it makes some of the same bold mistakes. Ghostbusters features several inexplicable decisions that we tend to overlook because it’s such a classic. But the scene in Evolution wherein a relatively benign comedic interaction is suddenly interrupted by a deranged Army MP who tries to shoot Ira in the face before being restrained by a handful of fellow soldiers is essentially this movie’s version of the notorious ghost blowjob – a baffling addition that could have easily been deleted without anyone ever feeling its absence. The attempted murder isn’t played for laughs; it’s treated deadly seriously, with Duchovny delivering an earnest performance of a terrified man who believes with all of his heart that he is about to be executed in broad daylight. It’s part of an equally misguided subplot in which we learn that Ira used to be an Army Colonel before his involvement with a botched Anthrax vaccine got him discharged in disgrace. Much like watching Ray Stantz go cross-eyed in a Napoleon costume while getting blown by a mysteriously generous ghost, Ira’s abrupt brush with murder throws a tonal wrench directly into the center of the film that is never collected. It just sits there and haunts you for the rest of the movie by defying explanation.
Evolution also tries to replicate the impenetrable riddle that is the romantic subplot between Venkman and Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). Ghostbusters smashes these two characters together after pairing them up for just two scenes in which Venkman engages in oddly childish negging that was apparently enough to sweep Dana off her feet. Similarly, Ira and Dr. Reed have two highly contentious interactions (one of which literally places them on opposing sides of a criminal deposition) before suddenly revealing a powerful mutual attraction that makes absolutely no sense and is never even suggested beyond some extremely basic teasing from Harry. They essentially get together because the script told them to. It’s an ignoble tradition, but one that Evolution carries on admirably.
Thankfully, not all of Evolution’s attempts to recreate Ghostbusters are misfires. The ensemble cast ultimately isn’t able to live up to the dream team of the 1984 classic, but there are a handful of genuinely funny moments, and some consistently entertaining performances from Jones and Scott (and a small but delightful contribution from Ty Burrell as a slimy military official, or a General in the U.S. Smarmy). And you can almost hear the collective sigh of relief when Dan Aykroyd shows up as the Governor of Arizona in the film’s final act. Like Ghostbusters, the climax of Evolution involves a giant monster that is inherently kind of ridiculous (it has a giant, fully visible anus) and explodes goo all over everyone when it is defeated. The film even ends with Ira, Harry, and Wayne in a faux Head and Shoulders commercial reminiscent of the iconic “We’re Ready to Believe You!” ad from the original Ghostbusters. Interestingly, while the Head and Shoulders ad is a fun piece of homage, it also perfectly exemplifies the intangible spark that Evolution is missing. Ira, Harry, and Wayne deliver a few goofy lines with amiable good humor, resulting in a perfectly serviceable gag. But it’s missing the subtle genius of, say, Egon very obviously looking down for his mark when he steps forward to deliver his line in the Ghostbusters commercial. It’s a small detail, but like that initial sample Ira and Harry scrape from the meteor, it contains everything.
Even though Evolution didn’t manage to launch a Ghostbusters 2.0 franchise for the new millennium, it’s hard to be too angry with it. It’s lighthearted enough, the effects are genuinely impressive for 2001, and the cast succeeds at being likeable even if many of the jokes land like a beached whale in clown makeup. As we continue to ignore the evidence that the phenomenal success of 1984’s Ghostbusters was the exception rather than the rule, we’re going to keep seeing attempts at reboots and sequels, both official and spiritual. (Ghostbusters: Afterlife hits theaters later this year.) Evolution might count itself among the failures, but it’s a bizarrely charming one, and it isn’t hurting anybody.
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