This new Invasion has the distinction of becoming more tedious...as it moves along.
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Note: In the following joint HD DVD and DVD Combo review both John and Jason take a look at the movie, with John also providing the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Shots.
The Movie According to John:
In the beginning there was "Invasion of the Body Snatcher," director Don Siegel's creepy 1956 adaptation of Jack Finney's 1955 novel, which played on the McCarthy era paranoia of the day. (OK, if you're really finicky, there were also the classic Robert Wise-Val Lewton "The Body Snatcher" from 1945 and Gerry Levy's "The Invasion of the Body Stealers" from 1969, but they had nothing to do with Finney's story.) Next came Philip Kaufman's 1978 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," which was just as creepy as Siegel's version and maybe a little scarier but dumped the overtly political angle for a more general comment on mass conformity. And after that came Abel Ferrara's 1992 "The Body Snatchers," which continued the tale on an army base where people were already in lockstep, thus rather losing some of its effectiveness.
Which brings us to the subject of our discussion today, 2007's "The Invasion," directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a screenplay by Dave Kajganich, producing a rough cut the studio reportedly didn't entirely like, so they brought in director James McTeigue (uncredited) and filmmaker-writers Andy and Larry Wachowski (also uncredited) to do some touch-up work. "The Invasion" stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, who, coincidentally, also starred together in 2007's "The Golden Compass." Interesting history, no? Actually, "The Invasion" isn't a bad picture taken on its own; it's just unfortunate that at least two other good films beat it to the punch and did it better. Of course, if you haven't seen the previous pictures, then maybe you'd like this one a little more, particularly in its new high-definition format.
"The Invasion" tries to be somewhat different from its forerunners, which is a blessing, and at least the first half of the movie works fairly well. Then it sort of melts down into a standard thriller by the end. This time out a space shuttle accident brings an extraterrestrial spore to Earth, where it secretly takes over people's minds while they sleep. People keep their memories but become new people. The problem here: no pods! Remember in the old films, the spores formed flowers that formed pods that formed people who looked exactly like real people and stole their minds, while the real people shrunk up and were carted away in the trash. Not here. This time it's a kind of virus, and the victims are infected either by being inoculated or by having other infected people essentially spit on them. Probably the single element in the new film I missed most was not being able to call the victims "pod people" because there aren't any pods! Bah.
The new movie keeps the last names of the main characters, Bennell and Driscoll, but this time out the filmmakers reverse the genders. Nicole Kidman plays Carol Bennell, a psychiatrist who begins hearing weird stories from her patients about people they know not being the same people anymore. Naturally, Bennell at first attributes it to delusion or paranoia or what have you, but soon enough she catches on. Daniel Craig plays Ben Driscoll, a doctor who is Bennell's best friend but not quite romantic interest. Also along are Jeremy Northam as Tucker Kaufman, Bennell's ex-husband, who is among the first people to become infected; Jackson Bond as Oliver, Bennell and Kaufman's young son; and Jeffrey Wright as Dr. Stephen Galeano, Driscoll's research colleague. Veronica Cartwright, who was in the 1978 film, is in this picture, too, playing one of Bennell's patients, Wendy Lenk.
What I liked best about this new version was Kidman's assured presence, at least until a moment of panic when she starts to behave irrationally for a while. Kidman, as usual, displays a strong mind and a decisive attitude, which go a long way toward making us root for her. She's sort of like Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" series--a staunch, positive female force. I also liked John Ottman's musical score, with its echoes of the 1978 version while creating an unearthly atmosphere of its own. And I liked the movie's buildup of suspense in the opening half, where we see people slowly being taken over by this alien power as nobody around them seems to know or notice what's happening. In the best tradition of the series, it's spooky.
What I didn't like as much, besides the absence of the pods, was the film's rather muddled themes. In the 1956 version, the allegory was clearly two-pronged: the pod people were like Communists, mindlessly working together for the good of the whole while losing all sense of individuality; and at the same time the pod people represented those misguided citizens who followed anything their government leaders like Senator Joe McCarthy told them, turning on their friends and neighbors in the process. Then in the 1978 version, we got a more general but still clear and important message about the pod people symbolizing the nonthinking, conformist masses who work and dress and act alike because of social or governmental directives. But in this new version, it's hard to tell just what the allegory is all about. There is talk about world events and world leaders, but the references are so fleeting and vague, they make little impact. There is talk about the differences in how we see the world and what the world is really like, but that doesn't go anywhere, either. There's a suggestion that we all live in a pill-popping, tranquilized nation, a fantasy world where we are unable to tell what is really going on around us, and where we're content simply to remain uninvolved. Yet the Russian ambassador says "In the right situation, we're all capable of the most terrible crimes." Yes, and how does that relate to the rest of the film's ideas? Perhaps if the movie had been a little clearer about its message or left out any message at, it would have been more effective. I mean, isn't just creeping us out enough?
Another thing that bothered me is that in this new version the infected folk seem to be more emotional, more aggressive, more violent than their old movie predecessors. Now, if the filmmakers intended us to interpret the old pod people as symbols of nonthinking nonentities, what are we to make of these new infected people? It seems to defeat the objective if they aren't totally unfeeling. These extraterrestrial spores tell us we can only find happiness by forsaking distinctions like "good" and "bad" and instead accepting all things as equal. Yet these newly infected persons seem as animated as anybody else as they chase down their victims. Indeed, while supposedly emotionless, they are as relentless in their pursuits as any high-def format fanatics trying to make converts. I mean, what's the point?
Some final things I didn't like were the gimmick of putting a child in danger unnecessarily, a complication that cheapens the suspense; the fact that some segments of the movie slow down too much, like a dinner-table discussion that only confuses the movie's issues; the detail that some people are immune to the spore's effects, which diminishes the story's tension; and the reality that the whole movie becomes too hectic in the second half. Lastly, and not to give anything away, I hated the cop-out ending. The 1956 and 1978 movies left us with lasting images, iconic images. This one is just a big Hollywood let-down.
"The Invasion" moves in too many conventional directions, its unwillingness to take chances proving its ultimate downfall. Or maybe it just can't make up its mind what it wants to be: a psychological thriller or a straight-out action thriller, after all. If the filmmakers couldn't make up their minds, how did they expect viewers to do so? Still and all, and in spite of all this, the movie is fun in enough important areas to keep one's attention for most of its running time. It's just that if the filmmakers were determined that the movie had to be made at all, they could have made it so much more.
John's film rating: 6/10
The Movie According to Jason:
So, a remake (2007) of a remake (1993) of a remake (1978) of a film (1956) based on a piece of literature (1954). Not too shabby, I must say, especially considering that the aspect of the original--film, at least--most people remember is the laughably cheese-tastic term "pod people." Seriously, how many other works have been through this many permutations without delving into idiocy? Maybe Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World?" Some of the superheroes we all know? But to survive over fifty years and spawn four movies? That's something to be proud of.
The space shuttle Patriot falls from the sky in an unscheduled trip back to Earth. With pieces of the vessel strewn from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, Texas, investigators scramble to figure out what happened. For Washington psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), it's just another day of dealing with abusive spouses and her own fractured family. But when reports start coming in from around the world of a disease affecting people everywhere, she and a small group of unaffected people deduce something more than the flu is happening. In order to find a cure, Bennell must find the one person she knows who has a possible immunization.
Like the Spielberg remake of "War of the Worlds" from a few years ago, "The Invasion" has one massive negative against it before the first reel unspools: It is being compared to earlier versions and to general public perception. How can it not be? The same problems faced the reimagined versions of "Battlestar Galactica" and "Flash Gordon." The trick is to adhere close enough to the source material without being slavishly devoted to it. Give the situation a unique spin, look at it from a new perspective. Anything to get the audience interested again.
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[release]22569[/release]