This weekend sees two new movies exploding on the screens of the land in a very major way. Both "Evolution" and "Swordfish" deliver about as much firepower as the current number-one film, "Pearl Harbor." Explosions galore.
For my money if I were forced to decide which of the two I had to see again, I guess I'd go with Ivan Reitman's "Evolution," despite its patches of bathroom humor. It's just plain more fun. Mind you, if you take the issue of evolution seriously, the film backs Charles Darwin all the way. Theologically, its thesis might just ruffle a feather or two, not that the filmmakers are asking you to take the film at all literally.
A meteor flashes through the heavens coming to an explosive rest in an underground cavern in Arizona. David Duchovny and Orlando Jones, professors at a local nearby community college, chip chunks from the large shiny rock standing upright in the cave. The surface, curiously, is hot and wet to the touch.
In no time, under a microscope, one cell units appear, then divide, and divide again, until as Duchovny, a former government scientist, explains in amazement, "We're witnessing an evolutionary process, but it took us millions of years to get where these babies are now." Indeed, in no time, cells are turning into worms and the worms – well, they keep on dividing getting ever larger. Really larger. It's "Jurassic Park" time. Dinosaur corpses are sprawled everywhere in the desert. The U.S. Army moves in, seals off the cave.
A super flying pterodactyl is swooping around a mall, a shoplifter dangling from its mighty claws. People are being evacuated in a ten-mile radius. A nasty army general figures he's got the solution: Napalm.
But our hero, from reading a chart off the back of Julianne Moore's tee-shirt (she's from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and love interest for Duchovny – don't think it was by accident the actress bears a strong resemblance to his "X-Files'" mate) knows fire will only make the cells divide even faster and that the answer lies in selenium found in huge quantities only in a well known brand of shampoo for dandruff. The means of administering the shampoo will appeal greatly to those – usually young boys – tickled by very gross bathroom humor.
The special effects are really nifty and fittingly downright scary due to deft editing. Reitman who gave us "Ghostbusters" and "Ghostbusters II" delivers the goods in fine form, even if the gimmick of the ever-expanding creatures when wet is a straight steal from "Gremlins" (I and II). But after all, those movies came out a quick 17 years ago, long before many of today's audiences were even born.
You got to give it to Reitman though for thinking up the cutest bit of product placement seen in many a movie. Stars Duchovny, Jones, and Seann William Scott line up as in a television ad at the end and deliver a plug for "Head and Shoulders" dandruff shampoo, which plays a key role in the movie.
Special effects rule the roost in "Swordfish." The plot is confused to the point of utter ludicrousness. On the other hand, everything moves so fast and improbably, you don't really have time to think it over and realize just how foolish the whole enterprise is.
The opening scene is pretty clever though, eliciting a massive intake of breath from the large preview audience as John Travolta in a silly haircut and chin whisker opines in close-up that we all know Hollywood movies these days are "real (four-letter word)." If you want to be unkind, you might say Travolta has just accurately summed up the movie you're about to see.
Travolta plays what's supposed to be the ultimate in cool – identified in the production notes as a "spy," but for whom exactly? We never do learn, although practically at the very end of the film, a reference is made to his being with the Mossad. But is it part of Israel's state policy to wipe out terrorism even if it means killing hundreds of innocent people? I don't think so.
Mystery man Travolta is surrounded by beautiful women, some tough bodyguards including England's Vinnie Jones, soccer star last seen in "Snatch," rides around in sleek vehicles and seems to have his own private 24/7 disco club. He offers a fee of $10 million to the world's greatest hacker, Australia's Hugh Jackman (in his third film so far this year), on probation never to touch a computer again or go back to prison. Jackman's mission is to break the code linking secret bank accounts of the DEA representing many billions of dollars.
Silly and jumbled as the whole enterprise is, "Swordfish" does have a couple of startling visual moments: A bus filled with hostages being lifted by helicopter up off the street and swung through the skyscraper towers of Los Angeles and a furious car chase along the city boulevards with Travolta suddenly ordering Jackman, "Take the wheel," then standing up in the speeding car declares, "Now we improvise." Pulling revolvers from his jacket he opens fire taking out the automobiles on either side. The audience cuts loose with a mighty whoop of glee.
Granted "Evolution" and "Swordfish" are strictly fluff – but, fluff for fluff, you'll probably get more for your money with either of them than with "Pearl Harbor" or "Moulin Rouge." Assuming, of course, you just want fluff.