The Invasion (2007)

BRING YOUR BARF BAG FOR THIS ONE !!!

I always wondered what big movie stars do on their summer vacations. Now i know. Kidman and Craig floated through this boring and sometimes laughable remake of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers which was made some time in the 50's.

In this remake the aliens run up to you and puke in your face turning you into another puking alien. I think the pukers were actually shown the daily rushes of this awful movie and then put in front of the camera.

In the 50's as you slept soundly in your bed, loved and trusted ones would come into your room and place an alien pod plant under your bed. Over the course of a few hours the pod would grow into a replica of you and the real you dies. The replica is void of emotion and has only one purpose. To conquer Earth. A much more terrifying concept than some screaming idiot running up and down the streets puking into faces.

Save your money and check out the original movie with Kevin McCarthy.

I give this movie one half bag of steaming alien puke.

July 2, 2008

Disappointing

I don't know about you, but when I'm up days at a time
trying to stay awake so that alien cooties are unable
to infect and take over my body, I get really dark circles
under my eyes and start acting a little bit punchy. But
that's just me. I'm not an "A-list" actress churning out
movie after movie to support a slavishly extravagant
lifestyle. The story held much potential, but the film
did not deliver. If you have an addiction to all things
Kidman, enjoy horror, and are not quite sick of
seeing her in almost every film that comes along, I
recommend The Others, which provides plenty of
shivers, an interesting plot, and decent acting. June 28, 2008

Pod People Need Love Too

The Good Things
*A few good, well-placed special effects.
*Good, strong, vivid photography and filming style. At the very least, it is not too dull to watch.
*Still a valid and watchable story with strong themes about the dangers of society being invaded from the inside-out. Corresponds well to modern-day society by incorporating the shuttle disaster and including some mention of other world-wide events.
*The science behind the story is strong and clearly defined.
*Also has a strong sense of paranoia.
*Includes strong themes about human nature; the emotional, irrational, and sometimes violent aspects that differentiate us from anything inhuman. The dialogue and acting support this idea quite well.
*Characters, although not especially deep, are okay. I think Nicole Kidman had a few good, smart moments.
*Has a happy ending!

The Bad Things
*Some parts are intercut together in weird ways, and may seem convoluted (although this could also be a good thing, because its unique and stylish).
*It is pretty predictable.
*What is this, the fourth time this story's been made into a movie?!

Of all the renditions of the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" story, this one probably won't outdo the original 1950s or 1978 versions. But it is a well-made film with good photography and a pretty good cast. I particuarly like the fact that this version incorporates a stronger theme about what it means to be human (or perhaps inhuman).

The disc has smashing good video and audio quality, and contains four or five short featurettes. June 19, 2008

It's not Oliver Hirschbiegel's fault. Really, it isn't.

The Invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007)

News flash: yet another amazing director is imported to Hollywood and crushed by the system. Film at 11.

Hirschbiegel, whose previous films Das Experiment and Der Untergang are two of the best films Germany's managed to come up with since the death of F. W. Murnau, took a quick plane ride to Hollywood to direct yet another film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Because we didn't already have enough. Better yet, they saddled him with a first-time scriptwriter, David Kajganich, who has since gone on to write the screenplay for the next surefire bomb delivered by Joel Schumacher, who in the past fifteen years has stamped himself repeatedly as the worst professional director in America. Even with so many handicaps, Hirschbiegel managed to deliver something the studio didn't like, so they brought in the Wachowski Brothers and James McTeigue (who was a pretty fine assistant director before coming under the Wachowski banner) to reshoot a good deal of the movie. So how much of this can actually be blamed on Oliver Hirschbiegel is subject to debate. And given the quality of his earlier output compared to that of the Wachowski Brothers, I'm very much inclined to give Hirschbiegel the benefit of the doubt, even if he didn't stick an Alan Smithee on the movie.

If you've been living in a cave since 1955, the plot: pod people are taking over the planet. Someone (in this case, Nicole Kidman) notices. As the rest of the world is taken over, our fearless heroine has to find some way to combat the invasion. Here, she's helped by her pal Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) and his (very convenient) acquaintance, a researcher named Galeano (Jeffrey Wright), who happens to have an entire army base at his disposal to do research. It's tough to be scared by the pods when the army is working on the problem. Okay, wait a minute. Maybe I should have been much more scared by this movie than I actually was.

It doesn't help that I've already seen the movie many times, done by three other directors, but with Hirschbiegel's name stamped on it, I couldn't resist. I only found out about the Wachowski connection later. I would have avoided it, and rightly so, had I known. It's trite and predictable, with not a convincing emotion to be found anywhere. (Kind of telling when the main difference between the good guys and the bad guys is the inability to show emotion.) It's just another useless Hollywood remake; the only difference is they're cannibalizing their own instead of heading to Asia to get source material. **
May 30, 2008

snatched...again

The Invasion is a slick, sophisticated take on the terrific tale of the pod people we have seen so many times before. Or at least that's what the movie tries to be. Fourteen years after Body Snatchers: the invasion continues, an under-appreciated nicely executed sci-fi thriller, we are now subjected to a new tale of a spore threat that spreads by way of a virus. This time, the nasty business of having to deal with the disposal of useless shells of humans after pod conversion, is completely unnecessary. The virus simply merges with human DNA and the alien consciousness takes control of the host body as they sleep. The spreading of the virus is accomplished through a mucous spit spray, the movie's main downfall as this type of transmission has been done countless times before in different sci fi vehicles. Since we miss out on the special effect heavy scenes of transformation that populate previous pod propulsion, There is plenty of time for suspense laden scenes filled with the dread and impending doom as the takeover of humanity seems unstoppable. Nicole Kidman and the boy playing her son are absolutely terrific and believable as they try to resist the onslaught. They outwit the zombie-esque populous at every turn in subtle and not so subtle ways. Now for the bad: Daniel Craig is horrendous as Kidman's love interest. He displays less humanity before conversion and more emotion afterward. A complete disparity when the rest of the cast largely compliments the decent (tough dumbed down)script. With the focal point of the movie being the quick takeover of humanity, the science equation suffers enormously as there is little sense of the slow building progress and understanding of the alien presence that we experienced in the previous pod adventures. Instead, we have quick explanations that only seem to be a way to provide a brief break from the suspenseful scenes. I enjoy these types of movies when they provide a plausible chain of events around the learning of how the alien pathology works and the steps we need to take to stop it. The Invasion fails here considerably, and therefore gets a lower rating because of it. There are several political allegories that seem forced rather than a subtle side benefit as in previous films as well, adding to discomfort. So, the moral is, if you want a decent thriller to get your heart racing, it's here in The Invasion, but if what you're really looking for is an intelligent sci fi vehicle that truly delivers the goods, it may be better for you to see the other Invasions of the pod people. 3 stars May 26, 2008

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