Genres

Visitors Review

lastliberal 2013-05-17 17:11:24

Not your daddy's Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I have read a lot of negative comments about this film, and I know Irisk being accused of being a Nicole Kidman fan, but I really like whatthey did here.To us the shuttle crash as a means to introduce the virus wasbrilliant. The use of "House"-like pictures of what was going on in thebody was also very good.The philosophical underpinnings of this film were also worthcontemplating. Do we have a world without violence by all becomingdittoheads, or do we have conflict and remain human? Some may opt forStepford, but I kinda like having differences.Kidman and Craig did good jobs, and there was enough suspense to makethis a worthwhile film. I won't jump on the Jackson Bond bandwagon,even though he was good, as I feel that Rebecca Windheim set thestandard for 10-year-olds in Black Swarm.

jabney415 2013-05-17 02:04:56

What kind of doctor is this??

I just couldn't get over an MD (who is a psychiatrist, and should beextremely familiar with psychoactive drugs)searching so franticallythrough the pharmacy for stimulants, and never once just calming downand finding out where they stock the Provigil. Don't want to sleep?That will do it. It was originally used to treat narcolepsy, and now Ibelieve the military, Air Force in particular, is using it. Gotta stayawake for those 20 hour flights without also turning psychotic. Thereis no way in hell she'd never heard of it in her specialty. Suspensionof disbelief went right out the window. I needed to watch Eyes WideShut so at least I could get some Kidman boobie shots.

jzappa 2013-05-15 05:18:14

A Surprisingly Above Average Anachronistic Remake

There have been many contemporary remakes of older films, like TheManchurian Candidate, Casino Royale, Underneath, or You've Got Mail,that take to the device of anachronizing its timely issues, and thesaid device of it comes off as just that. The Invasion, however,perhaps like Scarface, maintains the tension and sense of entertainmenthad by its preceding versions. A surprising follow-up to OlivierHirschbiegel's incredibly powerful last film, the German docudramaDownfall, his instincts are prevalent in his helming of thisunexpectedly decent Hollywood sci-fi update. The intensity and gravityof his portrait of Hitler's reign deflate from that level to the propersize at which a film like The Invasion works as a satisfying thriller,rather than a thriller that is yet the peak of significance portrayedby your average Hollywood studio director-for-hire in his career sofar.The story is essentially the same as the previous Body Snatcher films,with the adjustment of sociopolitical renovations involving the currentworld affairs that include war and other crises, which act not simplyas an inert part of the film meant to familiarize itself with currentaudiences but also as a way to absorb us further into the concept ofthe world's domination by the pod people, and what they may have tooffer through a perfect world without emotion, even though itdefinitely proves extremely difficult to have fast-paced chasesequences without any emotion on the part of the pod people. Indeed,when a group of them are chasing Kidman and Craig through a passageway,they clearly show frustration, which is an emotion, once they cannotfind them.Beside Nicole Kidman, whose strength as an actress lies in the diligentlogician whose role as a mother suffers agonizing burden, not so unlikeher character in The Others, Jeffrey Wright proves again to be morethan token scenery in a supporting role, and rising guy-movie stapleDaniel Craig continues to show his true colors as an able dramaticactor in the same action-adventure context.

2013-05-14 17:15:31

Invasion becomes just another zombie film

With Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, The Invasion should be good. But it isn't. The people responsible for this film managed to make it just another zombie movie. In fact, it's worse than most zombie movies. Give me even a new Romero film over this one. At least the new zombie movies--even the bad ones--usually feature some critique of our culture. But The Invasion has nothing. Nothing. Well, there is that one thing. The movie's main premise is that the world would be better if we were all zombies. No more wars, no more pain. The people who become zombies are actually happier once they turn. But this doesn't really make sense. Let's draw out the conclusion, shall we? The zombies still need to eat, which means that they still need to have resources like food and, therefore, money. Hence, there will still be a power struggle. Will there still be homeless people? Will there be presidents? So is the movie suggesting that the kind of communism or even socialism so desired by liberals won't work? Is that the main point? It's not brought up in the film at all, but I think it's lying dormant underneath. The problem is that the movie isn't good enough to make it a primary concern. If it were a primary concern, it would probably be a better movie.

JOEY 2013-05-10 09:49:01

Buy It At a Garage Sale

Now and then you see a film that is laughably bad, and this is one of them. I wish I could come up with one socially redeeming quality to this botch aside from Nicole Kidman in her undies, but really I can't bear the thought of making you waste 10 bucks.In a way, I really ENVY anyone who gave this movie an "A". There must be a great release of tension from having such low standards. Gee, with a grade of "A" for this rubber chicken, what to we assign to The Godfather? A++++++++?Whatever happened to a) suspense b) some degree of plausibility c)editing and d) a plotline you can follow?Once again, here's a film that proves the point "Never EVER give talented movie people a lot of money".

2013-05-09 16:28:02

Spare Me the Boredom

The movie should have stuck to the original premise of an adult couple trying to stay one step ahead of the aliens. In this version it is mother and son, with the son being "somewhere" while mother desperately tries to rescue him. This mother/child-in-danger scenario has been done over and over to the point of boredom. The son is immune to the alien virus. He may have antibodies that will save the world and momma, who was spit upon and infected by an alien. Yawn.Instead of seeds pods, the deadly virus is passed via spittle and vomit. Lovely. There's no hiding and hoping to catch a few winks far away from an alien seed pod. The virus is already inside, placed there by a vomit-laced cup of coffee or a spit in the kisser. Double lovely. Sleep activates the virus, which turns the human into an emotionless alien. The only remedy is to stay awake... and run, run, run while being chased, chased, chased...must save son...must behave as though infected... avoid suspicion and capture...must stay awake... must find the son, save the world.After an hour of this nonsense, I didn't care anymore, especially when I realized there was another 38-minutes to go. The movie drags on and on, running, chasing, eye lids fluttering, popping pills to stay awake.The ending is as stimulating as the obnoxious run and chase scenes. I was going to rate it with two stars simply because it kept me watching to the end, but the finale wasn't even worth the time invested. I hated the movie. I hated wasting the time needed to watch this drivel, hoping it would get better. It didn't.

jetsdanny 2013-04-23 10:20:32

Doctor Bennell must face overwhelming odds in order to save her son and escape a pandemic from space...

If you have any form of individual mind when it comes to movies, thenyou would like the body snatchers...everyone hates it because it had abad reputation and if you're one of those people who doesn't go and seea movie because the Review in the new york times says its bad then youmight as well just get yourself a t-shirt that says 'I'm A Tool' If youactually went to see it without any biased against you would like it,if you didn't then thats OK but don't assume it sucks because some 40year old film critic from the local news paper says its a horrible filmbecause movies have a different effect on everyone..I think it took a creative spin on things and gave the whole storylinea new perspective. I enjoyed it because i look for suspense and actualintelligence in a movie.. I like to make my own opinion in my headafter a movie is done i don't want everything spoon fed to me like mostmovies today are like..I am legend is one of those things where it just gave you everythingstraight forward and at the end you were just like..OK so the girllives now what? It doesn't leave it open for a discussion with friendsother than.."Oh yeah I am legend was Good..but the ending sucked" Atthe end of the body snatchers however instead of just saying thateveryone lived, it made you think twice because what seemed like a goodending had a slight twist to it on whether the main character made theright decision or not.So any trolls who come here just for fun and make fun of this moviejust take an hour to actually watch what you're making fun of becauseits really a decent movie to anyone who has an IQ above 100. It reallytakes a thinker to understand it fully and i know most people out thereare but they just don't bother to try it...

Ric-7 2013-04-23 00:10:30

Pointless and cold

This retread of the fifties sci-fi film changes a number of theoriginal plot elements, and in the process loses the point of theoriginal. The original made it rather clear that the alien idea wasconformity and following the herd. In this film, it looked as thoughthe alien virus suddenly caused peace in the world. Is the filmmakertrying to be fair and balanced, showing us both sides of the issue? Itundercuts the impact of the film--maybe a total planet take-overwouldn't be all that bad, as long as one's child is safe. The originalhad something to say and said it forcefully; this one just mumbles.Furthermore, the film undercuts whatever point of view it has bytacking on an abrupt happy ending, which seemed almost as foreign asthe virus.I think the use of a space shuttle disaster to bring the virus to earthis unnecessary, tasteless and insensitive. I think the rather detailedmonologue from a psychiatric patient about how her husband strangledtheir pet dog is unnecessary, tasteless and insensitive. I think thescene were a pod child fractures a dog's skull is unnecessary,tasteless and insensitive. Not to mention the current cliché ofcomputer-generated car collisions with pedestrians.I don't regret seeing the film, and it is not boring. Just pointlessand cold.

2013-03-29 19:19:15

Well done remake of a classic!

This review is from: The Invasion (Amazon Instant Video) As this is an obvious remake of "the body-snatchers" I started watching this film with quite some negative preconceptions.Personally I am not a fan of remakes, especially when the original was a great achievement already. However, Nicole does a great job in this film, I mean there are only a few films where she is not a believable and great actress, additionally together with her talent the film is able to create a very tense and uneasy atmosphere that keeps you at the edge of your seat for quite some time. In the end I have to admit that this film was a very successful adaptation of the original.

GroovyDoom 2013-03-29 12:50:18

Try not to fall asleep.

Maybe it was the intention of the filmmakers to make a movie aboutsomething horrible that happens to you when you fall asleep, and thentry real hard to make the viewer get sleepy so they get scared. I can'tthink of any other reason that anybody would have allowed this dud toescape its pod. Why on Earth did we need this movie, especially when itbrings nothing new to the table? All of the previously covered basesare touched on here in the new version: Someone says "My husband is notmy husband", someone runs through traffic trying to flag down peopleand warn them, there's a mad grab for pills that keep people awake,etc. The one thing that's missing is anything creepy or scary.Nicole Kidman is the main character this time, a psychiatrist whosework allows her to hear the paranoid stories about people who arenoticing something strange. But instead of pods duplicating humanbeings, it's just a case of alien flu that takes over a person'sconsciousness during sleep. Coincidentally, Kidman's young son isimmune to the alien bug. She's also well connected enough that she hasaccess to things like medical labs that can run some pretty amazingtests in a matter of hours.I guess bringing this story into contemporary times is what killed it;they tried to make it more subtle, and it failed. The movie throws in alot of heavy-handed stuff, mostly about the war in Iraq, but then itjust sort of stalls. It reminds us that atrocities are a part of beinghuman, and then suggests that the alien flu is either our salvation orour death sentence. The movie is almost too subtle for its own goodwhen it comes to the alien threat. In the previous films, there wereweird seed pods that contained the potential new bodies of whoeverhappened to be sleeping in the vicinity. The process by which theyconverted their victims was bizarre and visceral enough that itresonated on some level. That's all been removed in this version, andall we get is...alien vomit. What's worse, the aliens themselves arereal dopes. They aren't very bright, and have a hard time passing forhuman, even though they're in our bodies. One jerk thinks he's going toget over on Kidman when he comes to her house late at night asking tointerview her for the census. Uh, yeah.

2013-03-29 07:02:57

Past Reviews Snatched This Movie From Viewing

For a long time I didn't watch this movie because the reviews said it is really, really bad. But it's really not bad at all. I give it four stars because I keep thinking how much better 'I Am Legend' story is.

2013-03-29 00:48:34

Easily Pleased Me

I saw this movie this last weekend on TV. From the view point of most who have written reviews here I guess I am easily pleased because I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't the greatest in sicfi or the worst in remakes. Somewhere in between, I guess you could say. I enjoyed it and did not find that I wasted my time in watching it. For a ten dollar movie ticket I may have wanted more but for a weekend find on TV or a rental it hit the spot.

Robert J. Maxwell 2013-03-27 05:50:22

Highly infectious viral plot.

Don't show emotion, don't blink your eyes, walk like a zombie, andabove all don't go to sleep -- or else you change into a simulacrum ofyour former self. Where have we heard this before? Well, it was a storyin Collier's Magazine in the early 1950s. It was made into a superiorlow-budget science fiction movie by Don Siegel in 1956. Remade and updated in the 1970s. Done again, with less panache, ten years later.Then Carpenter's remake is in here somewhere. And now, yet again, thepermutations of the plot have been shuffled and here we go.This time, Dr. Binell is Nicole Kidman. It's from a woman's point ofview, and she has a child that must be protected. See, women are morehelpless than men, and children even more so, so that less effort needsto be put into the attempt to involve the audience in the protagonist'spredicament.There is no mention of pods, though I kept thinking throughout of thevictims as "pod people." This time, what appears to be "the flu" is"going around." One wonders where the flu "goes" when it's not goingaround. Some vast staging area in the sky probably. But, as theexperienced viewer already knows after the first few minutes, this is aremake of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the problem hasnothing to do with earthly pathogens. It's a large virus from outerspace that goes to work in the human body when "hormones are releasedduring REM sleep." (There are several inserts of gurgling blood streamsand bursting spiked basketballs, just so we understand what's up.) Theextraterrestrial virus does something to the skin before it morphs thevictim too, so that we see one guy, half-morphed, who looks like athousand-year-old freeze dried Peruvian mummy.The plot is nonsense but it hardly matters. The plot of the originalwas full of holes too, but Siegel did such a good job of conveying thesmall-town atmosphere of Santa Mira and the performers were so good attheir jobs that the impression left at the end was that of a good fairytale.This one is a bad fairy tale, tasteless, tawdry, cheapened in every wayexcept in terms of budget and cast. There's nothing wrong with thecast. Nicole Kidman is expert at handling some challenging roles -- "ToDie For" and "Eyes Wide Shut" come to mind -- but she has nothing towork with here. Basically, she runs and runs and runs, usually tuggingher child by the hand, while pursued by gangs of zombified goons. Thereis no atmosphere to speak of, and less character.The direction is perfunctory and the script pandering. There are shootouts, grotesque spastic semi-corpses, falls from skyscraper rooftops,transmission by means of vomit colored like spinach dip, multiple carchases, multiple car crashes, and gore galore. It borrows clichés fromevery action thriller you've ever seen, including a gratuitoushypodermic jab into the heart, from "Pulp Fiction." It raises, almostby accident, some interesting questions. In the background of all thishectic activity, we notice on TV that the world leaders have stoppedbickering because, presumably, they've been infected with the virus.Kim Jong Il disbands his nuke project; the president turns Iraq over tothe Iraqis; pharmacies give away vaccines for AIDS, and so on. Zombieshave nothing to fight about or to covet, you understand. So, then,what's so bad about zombification? The original posed an interestingconflict between humanity, with all its flaws and virtues, includinglove, and a placid but will-less existence. Absent here. And is KimJong Il a pod person? Is George W. Bush? And, if the victims don'treally care about anything, how do they reproduce? The film raises another interesting point. There's a virus goingaround, for sure, but it's a viral idea that spreads from production toproduction, first insidiously, then fulminatingly, leading to terminalGargantuanosis. An idea, once proved to be commercially successful,invades the other Hollywood cells and forces them to replicate the DNAof the original until they finally pop and release still more virusesinto the cinematic blood stream and before you know it, every new movieyou see is a replica of an earlier one, whether this is acknowledged inthe title or not. Yes -- "The Invasion" is the perfect title for thispiece of brummagem garbage.

NormanCroucher 2013-03-26 20:31:18

It's the end of the world as we know it... and everybody's just fine

Depending on your opinion regarding the continual remakes of JackFinney's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," you either champion the 1956original as the definitive adapted version, or, if you're like me, feelthe true masterpiece accolade belongs to Philip Kaufman's 1978 remakewith Donald Sutherland. Either way, "The Invasion," has a lot to liveup to. The whole concept has always been about paranoia and masshysteria, each remake updating the setting, characters and underlyingtheme to suit their respective era, and out of all the multitude offlaccid remakes Hollywood churns out every other box office weekend,"Body Snatchers," was inevitably due its next progressive upgrade toreflect the new millennial fears of today. So it's a shame that theterrifying, allegorical screams of the classic originals fizzle outinto a bit of a whimper in Oliver Hirschbiegel's already redundantversion.First of all, the casting is all wrong. Everyone in the cast fiddlesaround from delivering lacklustre turns to merely adequate ones (Kidmanand Craig included). Fifty percent of the tension from these moviesmust be supplied by a surplus of convincing performances, plus the plotis not clearly defined enough from the start to allow you sit back andsoak up the terror. It's all over the place, mostly borrowing heavilyfrom Philip Kaufman's ideas back in '78. Even the wonderful VeronicaCartwright pops up for a cameo just as Kevin McCarthy did back inKaufman's 1978 update. But it only goes to further the comparisons ofthis film to its parent originals, which does not help its case.Perhaps due to its lack of invention, that and the fact that the storyis so familiar to us already, Hirschbiegel had great difficulty inrecreating the suspense factor we have come to expect from suchadaptations based on the famous Finney novel. Hell, even Abel Ferraradid a decent, if workmanlike job, on his military base set remake,"Body Snatchers," and that was only just perfunctory. Here, the alienassimilated humans come off embarrassingly like zombies from a Romeromovie (see the silly car chase scene at the climax).There are some interesting changes however. One is that the bodysnatching aliens are re-imagined as a virus that infects people like aflu epidemic or even more so, the AIDS virus, increasing the speed andeconomy of takeover ten fold, which is a neat little subversion on thedated pod people concept. The effects are just as gross though, eachbody snatched hybrid human spewing out infection as if they were LindaBlair in "The Exorcist." It works as an aesthetic plot device andcarries with it repulsive visuals that make me want to spew too. Thenthere are the 'fashionable' allusions to anti-American imperialism. Thebiased media's spin on this imminent invasion causes the ignorance of anation to ultimately be the end of them all (hinting at the media'sappetite for continually feeding us disinformation on current events).The ideal aspiration of becoming a perfect world, where there is no warand no hate, is the ironical catalyst for this catastrophic change(John Lennon might be happy in this instance however). Hirschbiegelattempts to allegorically mutate this whole alien invasion into ametaphor for the invasion of Iraq and the enforcement of a collectiveideology onto an entirely different culture. In this story even theCommunists cease to be Communists because the terminal lethargy of thealien organism requires total submission from all of its victims. Webecome one race. There is no God in this story, only peace by means ofassimilation and the extradition of all independent human thought andemotions. This may not have been the sole intention of the filmmakershowever, but even the title of the film itself alludes to thismetaphorical idea. I still commend it for at least trying to reshapeFinney's ideas into something resembling modern issues.No matter what the thematic intentions were, "The Invasion," is stilldistinctly unscary for the most part. There is no real sense of thisglobal, paranoid pandemic engulfing us all, so instead of evoking dreadin the audience, we get instead just an unhappy case of déjà vu forthose of you well versed in Body Snatcher film history. One scene seton Kidman's doorstep is admittedly frightening when it happens but thetension is quickly left to deflate. There are a couple of moderatelyheart pounding interventions, I suspect added after the test screeningprocess, but it is not enough to elevate this apocalyptic vision ofalien takeover anywhere near the urgency mark it needed to strike. Anysense of fatalistic inevitability is constantly hampered by the factyou know you are watching a modern Hollywood horror that might justgive us a happy holidays ending because everyone has forgotten the truenature of a downbeat, or disturbing horror ending. Things should notend well in a film like this. Donald Sutherland's other worldly screamreverberated around my head after watching the end of thisself-proclaimed sci-fi thriller. It was bleak, unsettling andinevitable. That is true horror; something which cannot be stopped,something we must acknowledge is happening yet are helpless to combatagainst. Where is the fatalism in this translation? Where is thehorror? This is glossy remake whoring at its most impotent andinsulting with glaringly obvious product placement to boot. Playstation2 mini-advert anyone?If you want thrills, chills and spills, check out "Invasion of the BodySnatchers 1978," if you want strong, concise and allegoricalstorytelling at its finest, check out "Invasion of the Body Snatchers1956," but if you want a half hearted amalgamation of both of thosemovies, then check out "Invasion of the Body Snatchers 2007." Recycledentertainment for desperate, remake ridden times.

xxThalinaxx millie 2013-03-24 16:58:20

good movie, nice and suspenseful!

I think this movie should be given a little more credit. I thought Iwas pretty good, and the acting from Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidmanreally helped you to imagine what you would do in that situation.Before I saw this movie I checked the rating on it on IMDb as alwaysand I was surprised to see it had only been rated a 6/10! I've got toadmit I don't know which actress could have done a better job ofNicole's role then her, she put plenty of feeling and emotion into itand once again I think it set the right mood.I think Daniel Craig couldhave done a better job in the acting though, but towards the end he waschilling.If you want to see a movie thats a bit flightplan- ish cross Zombie-ishsee The Invasion!

2013-03-24 00:46:26

Not Great But Not Horrible Either

This is the latest remake of the 1956 original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Clearly, it isn't as well written as that movie, or the 1978 remake starring Donald Sutherland. The beginning of the movie features the space shuttle crashing and spreading alien spores from space across a large part of the southern U.S. It shows clips of CNN footage, which may in fact be actual footage from the Columbia disaster(?). Either way, I thought this foundation of the movie was hastily and sloppily done. But after that the movie becomes rather interesting...and fast paced. In some respects, I thought it was scarier and creepier than the original. Nicole Kidman does a fine job in the leading role. However, there is no escaping the fact that this is just another remake. If you have seen the 1956 and 1978 versions, you will no doubt be a little disappointed. But I still found it worth watching.

rb1225 2013-03-19 19:20:56

Who edited this film???

This is the most disjointed film I have ever seen. One moment CarolBennell is running from the aliens in the suburbs, suddenly she isrunning in the city centre. In another scene Carol and Ben Driscoll aresurrounded inside a building, then the film cuts to them speeding awayin a police car with no explanation to how they got there! Not tomention the tons of smaller errors such as when Carol takes off hershoes and is then instantly running in her shoes again.Who edited this!? Was it their part time job? Did they ever actuallywatch the film again after they shot it?! Did someone steal reels ofthe film and they never realised....?

caroline-189 2013-03-19 10:47:24

Don't waste your time, get a Nicole Kidman poster., 22 December 2007

Don't waste your time, get a Nicole Kidman poster., 22 December 2007Author: arikdr from Israel "Its another alien invasion movie, and its a bad one. How many timescan we see re-makes of "Invasion of the body snatchers"?!? We had theoriginal in 1953, and a re-make 25 years later, in 1978. now 29 yearslater - they make another one. I guess we should prepare for anotherone in 2030... 97% of the movie describes the invasion, though the ideais quite well understood after 10 minutes. - then the whole problem issolved at the last 3 minutes like with a magic wand, and with minimal"heroic" action. True - it does have a more modern feel than the oldones, but its the same lame and chewed-up idea all over again, andbadly done. Don't waste your time. Don't even waste time downloadingit. It's that bad. get a Nicole Kidman poster instead"Just for the record, this is the Forth remake - one was made in thenineties to with the dumb actress from night of the living dead remake.Its getting ridiculous, isn't it???!!!

2013-03-11 08:30:01

Poor,Poor Nicole...

I`m wondering if poor Nicole wasn`t in rehad herself!My oh My! This was a very bad acting job from someone who could once actually act.The nose job and boob job must have been from Dr.Bombay.This movie was a "RUSH JOB" to attempt to make it in for the summer. The best part of the movie was the ending when we got up to leave!Nicole, please stop the plastic surgery...You look like Kathy Griffin`s older sister...

Robert Gilbert 2013-03-10 20:43:40

keeps your attention

awesome remake of a classic, this movie keeps your attention on the screen, thats not too common these days... definetly going back to see it again, nicole kidman and daniel craig work perfectly together.