A forgotten sci-fi bust that ripped off a much better movie by its own director crash lands on streaming

If you were to name a big budget studio project directed by Ivan Reitman that revolved around a team of bumbling scientists getting caught up in a fantastical end-of-the-world scenario that finds them battling against creatures the general public widely believed to be a myth, would it be Evolution?

Of course not, it would be one of the filmmaker’s two Ghostbusters movies. And yet, Reitman apparently hoped nobody would notice the 2001 blockbuster bore a suspicious amount of similarities to the all-time classic supernatural comedy. And yet they did, because virtually every single review negatively compared Evolution to its spiritual predecessors.

This time around, it’s David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones, and Seann William Scott as the ragtag group of disparate personalities plunged into a battle for the fate of humanity after a meteorite crashes on our planet and begins disseminating organisms that evolve at a dangerously rapid rate, with the government stepping in to make things worse once the world finds out aliens are real.

While Evolution does have its moments, as a whole it never manages to escape the fact that it’s an inferior retread of the magic Reitman had spun before. Almost 20 years after hauling in a disappointing $98 million on an $80 million budget, though, the intergalactic adventure has returned with a vengeance on streaming.

As per FlixPatrol, the forgotten flop has morphed into one of the most-watched titles on Rakuten, but if you’re on the fence about taking the plunge on Evolution – you’re probably better off just watching Ghostbusters instead.