Customer Reviews

The Invasion [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(36)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Someone must defend the exquisite "The Invasion", which was a huge critical and commercial disaster when released in 2007. Personally, I think it was way ahead of its' time, and it is quite ironic that most people are waking up to its' genius on DVD.

Nicole Kidman, in perhaps her most restrained performance plays 'a woman against the world'. Holding onto her sanity while the rest of the world around her are converted literally into zombies, she plays a simple woman who has to deal with some extraordinary circumstances. I found her insomniac performance while teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown while trapped in the convenience store, to be one of her greatest screen moments.

Its moments like that which define "The Invasion". This is NOT a film for special effects afficionados. In fact, I can't recall even one significant special effect or 'things blowing up'. What I got instead was a quiet, intelligent science fiction thriller that relied upon dialog and languid camera movement to convey a sense of fear and mayhem. In fact, the Directors' style here is an amalgamation of David Lynch and two of his best movies - "Dune" and "Mulholland Drive". The film-noir vibe is stark throughout this film, and I would say this is closer to an art film that a typical commercial thriller.

Perhaps its that sensibility that made this a commercial failure. In one extended sequence, Nicole Kidman is informed that in order to escape being noticed by the zombies, you need to be 'emotionless'. Nicole then proceeds to take the train and walk the streets, and does a fine job of conveying nothingness, simply to escape being killed, while all the while her character is dying inside. Superb.

The end could have been better, yes, and in fact even I was surprised at how conveniently they wrapped things up just to finish the film off. But thats a minor quibble. I preferred this vastly over last years "Children of Men", which I would call "The Invasion"'s poorer cousin. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend the negativity this film attracts when in fact its certainly a science fiction classic and clearly the best film made on the Invasion theme so far.

There is a film from 1994 - "Body Snatchers", which had the same storyline. That was another minor masterpiece that no one noticed (try looking for the DVD, it starred Gabrielle Anwar in her defining role). Its unsung movies like these that are present in the science fiction genre, and true fans of the medium such as myself will always be there to give them the respect they deserve.

Ignore the negativity, and BUY this on DVD today. Its certainly worth watching more than once, and will quickly become one of your favorite movies if you give it a chance.

Five Stars.

Every era seems to have a connection to the "Body Snatchers" as there have been about 4 films so far that are based on the classic tale and it has spawned numerous similarily themed films and silly rip-offs (Invasion of the Pod People).

The first version and arguably the best is Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) which dealt with McCarthism. The next take on the classic came in 1978 with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and has become my favorite version of the tale. It focused on our need to be emotional even when it makes no sense, hence, the appearance of Leonard Nimoy in the film who built a career playing Spock, part emotionless Vulcan and part human, on Star Trek. Then there came Body Snatchers in 1994 and although that was a rather forgettable version, it did have something to say about the "me" and "greed" era of the 1980's.

Now we have "The Invasion" in which Nicole Kidman takes on Leonard Nimoy's supporting role in the 1978 version and makes it the starring role. She is well-supported by the new James Bond, Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, and even the actor who plays the new Felix Liter in the same Bond film. In addition, there is Jeremy Northam (The Net) who has made a nice career playing heavies, and in a moment of inspirational casting there is Veronica Cartwright playing a patient of Kidman's.

Cartwright was terrific in Alien (the first one) and has been in more supporting roles in film and television than I can remember. But why is she so memorable for being in this film? She was in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, and Leonard Nimoy. She is a consistently strong supporting actress and to see her return 30 years later in this remake is fun and it's nice that her role isn't some small cameo either.

The film itself is rather unremarkable even though it is enjoyable. I think it may end up being only a bit more remembered than the 1994 version of this tale only because of it's cast as the direction, effects, music, and photography are all rather pedestrian. In addition, many may recall this film for NOT having the infamous "pods" for which this tale is so well-known for. While this makes this take a bit unique, I think it's a flaw as it treats the invasion more as an infection and less than an interglatic fight to exist as we are and not as another being would have us be and that is ironically the focus of this film even though that isn't played up until near the end (as if it were an after-thought).

This tale continues to be haunting even with the lackadaisical approach here because this tale speaks to us in this era that seems to suggest that everyone not exactly like one group is wrong or bad. We have become in this era rather ethnocentric and this film lightly explores how if we were all alike there would be no more wars, distrust, hate and so forth, but for that kind of world we must give up our souls. In the end, this film attempts to redeem it's own pointlessness by throwing in the question of whether is it better to have wars over religion, status, wealth, etc. or have peace at the cost of not being who we are and our right to express that.

The film wastes the talents of all by only hinting on this theme rather than exploring it with more depth and sincerity as the previous versions explored their visions of paranoia, isolationism, and the deadening of emotions in an ever increasingly violent world. For this lack of seriousness and earnestness this film is all too much like the 1994 version which was more like this one in that it had a good cast and was appropriately chilling, but lacked significant punch and/or influence.

This film is mild popcorn fun and the whole family can see it, but don't expect it to hold up to the first two far superior versions of this timeless tale.

Simply terrible. Aside from being able to bask in the magnificence of Ms. Kidman, who is indeed magnificent and does all she can with her role, this film has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Sophomoric white bread direction, shameful use of news footage and witness interviews from the latest shuttle disaster, zero character development, bland camera work and editing, no emotions (it's hard to tell when characters have turned since aside from Kidman the screenwriters and director don't allow the cast to convincingly exhibit any emotion while still human,) and no pods!

This could be a hundred other movies over the last twenty years - bad guys chase good guys around downtown Washington DC, car chases every five minutes, cell phones, elevator buttons, basement parking lots, cars on fire, child must be rescued, blah blah blah.

Oh, and instead of pods the "disease" is passed by people throwing up. In people's coffee. In each other's faces. Nice, thanks for that. That's really challenging intellectually. That's fine scriptwriting. Is that the Academy calling?

The original remains an almost sacred masterpiece and it still hasn't been topped. The remake staring Donald Sutherland was excellent and genuinely creepy, cleverly directed and scripted. The third version was quite OK. This edition is beyond lame and doesn't for a second create a tenth as much mood as an average Twilight Zone episode. Your standard dog food commercial is more frightening, more mysterious. (And better directed.)

If you want to find a textbook case of how void of creativity big studio Hollywood has become, and how they denegrate the intellect of their audience, look no further.

Ok, most bad reviews here are justified. Did we need another remake? For sure not. But on the other hand, a really strong story at the core of the script proves nearly unkillable.
And I want to place on record my objection to the Kidman bashing: I think she does a very good job and makes the movie watchable despite all efforts to the contrary, she certainly helps safe the suspense, which is not totally out. (Hope nobody noticed that I am the chairman of the Kidman fanclub in Morning Land.)
One objection to the script: the story is 50 years old, the efforts to place it at the turn of the century have given us some nice anachronisms. There is a Czechoslovakian Ambassador in the story, at the same time that the Irak war and the Darfur crisis are issues. Of course one can't expect a Hollywood script writer to keep up with all the political changes in Europe...

I remember being excited about this movie when I first saw the trailer, but after watching I think the trailer was better, at least it was short and showed all the interesting parts. This was not a terrible movie, it was watchable but it felt bland and there were really no surprises, half of it was chase scenes, I felt as if I was watching a remake of "The Fugitive" or something, and not to mention Nicole Kidman's frozen face - I think some emotion and wrinkles on her would make her look human, instead she looked more alien than half the invaded bodies. I never saw the original but half way thought the film I asked myself - what is this movie about? It didn't feel that it was about anything; sadly it was people going though actions with no juice and energy behind any of it.

This is something that I can see myself watching once but never again, the character development was completely non existent, even Daniel Craig was lacking, he looked washed out and bored to be there, there was no passion about anything whatsoever. I also felt disappointed by the ending, it disintegrated any hopes of this movie packing a punch, at least if it was horrible and gruesome and wild I would have felt that I watched something, instead it felt like a lukewarm leftover lunch that I ate only because I didn't want to throw it away.


- Kasia S.

Somebody has to warn Nicole Kidman to leave classics like this and the very similarly disappointing The Stepford Wives alone. This, the third remake of the 1956 classic (also redone correctly the first time in 1978), is quite frankly all bark and no bite. Gone are the classic pods from another world simply replaced with a virus that makes you all cheesy while you sleep to awaken new, refreshed, and emotionless. At least with the first two films the possessed/aliens got angry from time to time, but in this the group plays the unphased to the point of boredom. At least they tried to make the film different with instead of a young couple running switching it to mostly a mother and her child (who is conveniently immune), but the chase is typical cat and mouse and the ending has to be one of the most upbeat & weakest ones I've seen in quite awhile. Watched off of cable (where it belongs), spend your next money to burn on the excellent 1978 version instead.
(RedSabbath Rating:5.5/10)

This is the 3rd remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (or 4th)? Its a great story, but the directors do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with it. To make things worse, there are alot of good actors in this movie but every scene is done in a predictable manner, by-the-numbers.

This movie is not bad, its simply not much of anything. I recommend buying one of the earlier Invasion of the Body Snatcher re-makes rather than "Invasion".

This version of Jack Finney's book Invasion of the Body Snatchers had some promise, but ultimately missed the opportunity. Apparently the studio didn't like the cut director Oliver Hirschbiegel delivered. My suspicion is that the original film, which was completed in 2006, was probably more coherent. The Wachowski brothers were hired for massive rewriting and James McTeigue directed the new scenes. The result is a film that takes an unexpected turn for the worse.

What's new in this rendition is that the victims of the alien virus aren't replaced by duplicates. Instead, the virus just acts within their own bodies, changing them so that they act as one organism-- we're talking a slightly nicer version of the borg from Star Trek. The idea of a more benevolent invader would have been a fresh interesting take and was where this movie was headed before the hack job. It would have been more insidiously delightful to explore the cost benefit analysis of succumbing to the invasion. No more wars, cruelty, and poverty on one side, while the stripping of a lot of what makes us human on the other-- also the collective vs. the individual. This probably would have come closer to Don Siegel's communist cold war scare overtones in the original movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Instead the movie moves to more action sequences of fighting against a overtly hostile threat. This is where the original idea gets abandoned and the movie loses its way.

All of the actors put in decent performances here including an admirable job by Nicole Kidman in the lead role, Daniel Craig as her love interest (an excellent new James Bond by the way), a very good cameo from Veronica Cartwright (in the 1978 remake Body Snatchers), Jeremy Northam as the somewhat creepy ex-husband, and Jeffrey Wright as the scientist.

I think the studio should take the blame for dooming a film that had some potential. It's still an enjoyable watch and worth a rental, especially for alien invasion enthusiasts. I don't think I've ever seen a more equally distributed range of opinion by reviewers (from one to five stars). Where it all tallies out is about where I'd put it... 3 stars.

P.S. Although lesser known than Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney wrote a couple of great books on time travel (From Time to Time and Time and Again) as well as several short stories. They go well beyond being just science fiction and are highly recommended.

I see the multiple negative reviews, and yes "Invasion" is just another Hollywood remake, and it has been done better. Nothing can really top the 1950's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" anyway. But I have to say that this isn't a bad movie. I remember hearing about the pushed back release date, the re-shot scenes, and I remember this movie only lasting in the theaters about two weeks, so when I popped it into the DVD player I had a copy of "The Mist" on hand just in case it was so bad it would be turned off after only a few minutes. I have to say I enjoyed "Invasion". Nicole Kidman is always great to watch, and throw James Bond into the mix, with some really good special effects, and a clawing sense of paranoia..."Invasion" provides a nice evening of entertainment. I liked the idea of a "virus" predator this time around, and I really liked who the "virus" arrived on Earth. (Sorry no spoilers here...but I see plenty listed in other reviews..so feel free to let them ruin the film for you..not me) There are some pretty tense scenes, and Nicole Kidman does a great job. Sometimes it becomes hip to bash a flick for little or no reason: "Blair Witch Project" and "Waterworld" come to mind, and I think "Invasion" is suffering for that reason now. Compared to "The Fog", "Black Christmas", "The Ring Two" and a myriad of other truly lousy remakes, "Invasion" at least brought something to the table. I'll re-watch it so it was worth a purchase for me, but if your undecided, throw it on your Netflix list, and give it a chance.

First off, I'll let everyone here know that when i saw this movie I've never seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers(shame on me) and so cannot compare it to that movie. I've never seen a re-make of it before, nor have I read the book. I went into this movie with (mostly) an open mind expecting some virus fun, and that exactly what I got.

Walking out of the theaters on opening night, I remember my sister calling Invasion a "glorified zombie movie" and I could not agree more. No, this is not a "Zombie" movie in any strict sense of the word. The infected talk, drive cars, never show emotion, and remember their past lives. They do not try to eat their victims, and cannot tell right away who is and who isn't infected. That said however, there is just something about the way they move, the way they don't require nourishment, and just walk around mindlessly infecting others with their alien virus that makes them very zombie like. They're not Dawn of the Dead (Ultimate Edition) zombies, and they're not 28 Weeks Later (Widescreen Edition) zombies either; these binges are a completely new sort of zombie, sort of the Stephen King zombie for those of you who've read Cell: A Novel.

Anyway, to the movie. It starts out pretty awkwardly to be honest. The shuttle crashes and from the very beginning we can tell that something is wrong, other than the guy turning into goo in his bed. we start to notice, very slowly, that some people are just... not acting like people. Their smiling too much, their too nice, they start throwing up in your coffee, you know, friendly stuff like that. at first everyone thinks there's some sort of flue going around but pretty soon we start to realize that something terrible, or maybe not so terrible, is going on.

The real horror is that some alien virus has infected most of the world's population without us even being aware of it. this virus, with is passed from one person to another though bodily fluids much like in 28 Weeks Later, changes a humans personality so that they become very mellow, emotionless, and their only drive is to infect others and kill the immune. As the virus spreads, instead of worldwide chaos and anarchy that we see in most virus movies, wars and violence seem to stop everywhere it goes. US troops pull out of Iraq, Israel and Palestine end years of fighting, and President Bush meets with Chavez from Venezuela. Almost all the world's problems end overnight as this virus takes a hold.

And that's the terror and dilemma of Invasion. Is this virus something that should be stopped at all cost, or is it a god given cure for our aggressive tendencies? Is it the cure for violence, war, and poverty? Should we fight this change in our human nature, or should we accept it? That question is always in the back of your head while watching this film, but at the same time once you look at the infected, you know you don't want to be one of them. Even though you know that the world would be a much safer place if we were all like them, you still know that it is better to be violent and human than peaceful and infected.

The only real problem I had was that the ending was a little too convenient and abrupt. I mean, I liked the concept that they were going for, but they needed to milk the ending more than they did. The movie was going on all cylinders and then, with little warning, it ends. Despite this though, I found the movie very enjoyable. I walked out of that theater praising Invasion as much as I could, and you should too.

EDIT: Okay, I've finally gone back and seen the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie as well as its 1978 remake. As much as I loved this version of the classic tale, I have to admit both those versions are much better then this and can understand why some older fans would give this one a negative review. This Invasion is no where near as good as the older versions, but that doesn't make it bad. It's still a very good film, if one can somehow put the original movies out of mind while watching it.

Re-watch value; high.