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 Rating: PG-13
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Jeffrey Wright, Jackson Bond
Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel
The 21st century is not the first time that Hollywood explored a way of expressing its concerns about censorship, communism, totalitarianism, and a movement to rid one of his or her individuality. In 1956, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers tampered with the nation's red scare paranoia. Its premise was based on the idea that alien creatures had invaded nice, unassuming, small-town USA.
Their mission: to rid the world of those who harbored emotions.
Ultimately, the end result would be a planet with a new and "improved"
race of intelligent life. Dr. Bennel was the small town doctor and hero
that discovers the aliens' mode of entry and tries to put an end to their diabolical scheme. What made the movie a classic was the humorous, but
eerie method of conversion: peapods.
Twenty-two years later, Hollywood assaults the movie-goer once again. The Invasion exploits the same concepts as its predecessor, however, the characters and locations have changed. This latest variation on an old theme takes place in the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. Its protagonist is no longer a man, but a woman, and, instead of incubation-capable peapods, the victims' conversion involves their skin forming a gooey, fibrous, venous shell—a pupa if you will.
The make-up for this effect appeared as though someone had left a few heads of lettuce in their refrigerator way too long. After which, they collected the mushy salad mix and spatula-spread it on the actors' faces.
As the movie opens, the audience sees DR. Carol Bennel (Kidman) frantically rummaging through shelves of medicine bottles in the pharmacy section of a pilfered grocery store.
The next scene cuts quickly to news reels of the Space Shuttle Patriot, or what little is left of it. It supposedly exploded upon re-entry during an unscheduled return to Earth. Sections of it had been strewed for miles around. Concerns about the scraps being contaminated with a foreign endospore-like organism began to emerge...
Spawning an all-out hunt for the missing pieces to the puzzle, Dr. Tucker Kaufman (Northam), a NASA scientist, and Dr. Bennel's ex-husband, is called out to investigate. In turn, via a finger stick, he is one the first to be "infected" with the android-inducing visitor.
News travels fast and so do souvenir collectors, jonesing for a piece of the Patriot. It's reported that pieces of the ill-fated shuttle had to be eradicated from a most disturbing source: eBAY!
While all of this is going on, we are introduced to some of the movie's subplots which all tie neatly into place with the main action.
First there is the competition going on between Bennel and Kaufman. They're jockeying for position in the heart of their son, Oliver (Jackson Bond). He, meaning Oliver, is a gentle 10 year-old boy who just happens to suffer from strange nightmares. In spite of Dr. Bennel's ability to help others in her psychiatric practice, she always seems to come up short when it comes to helping Oliver.
Instead, to compensate for her woeful feelings of failure with her own child, Bennel launches herself into one of her patient's cases. The patient is a middle-aged housewife who is frightened by her husband's overt and sudden change in personality. He is uncommonly cool, kind, and not nearly as dangerously short-tempered as he was prior to the Space Shuttle's catastrophic crash landing—hint, hint.
The only time her husband shows any signs of being capable of violence is when he turns on the family dog for growling at him. His response is to kill the poor pooch by cervical dislocation...snapping the dog's neck. Without a morsel of remorse, he tosses the dog into the trash.
This sort of "out of character" behavior raises some flags in the good doctor's mind, since she too has noticed her ex-husband's uncommonly spontaneous interest in their son's care-taking. With evidence gathering, such as her husband's bizarre behavior, her patient's husband's inability to express regret or any sort of emotion, her son's constant battle with nightmares, and a noticeable change in the demeanor of hundreds of commuters on her way to work, Dr. Bennel begins to grow suspect that all of these events may be connected to one horrifyingly surreptitious source.
Her concerns continue to escalate when Oliver gets some sort of sticky latex peel on his skin. Dr. Bennel removes it and examines the foreign, thin-layered, mysterious film. She brings it to the lab where her "friend-with-potential", Ben Driscoll (Craig) and his colleagues analyze the unidentified, flubbery object.
While this is going on, it is no secret that the government is worried about the present state of the union. The only difference is, unlike other countries who have already activated their nationwide epidemic protocols, the U.S. has, to the surprise and dismay of the sensible and uninfected, decided to treat the situation as though it were merely a flu-virus.
As a bevy of information about this so-called virus is gathered, the two doctors and their colleagues grow more frightened, feeling the need to run for their lives. They learn that those infected have been programmed—brainwashed into to trying to infect others. The favorite mode of infection is, of course, the most grotesque—puking into other people's food and drink—especially coffee.
Once exposed to the infected body fluids, the victim must enter what is called R.E.M. (yes, like the rock band) sleep. It is in this deepest sleep that the metamorphosis and ultimate conversion takes place.
It's up to doctors Bennel and Driscoll to find a cure for those unfortunate souls, but until they do, they must follow the advice of those who have not been converted: show no emotion. They must walk and act as the infected do, with blank expressions and a chilling zombie-like gait.
Dr. Bennel's worst fears become reality when she discovers that Oliver has been exposed, compliments of his paternal grandmother in Baltimore. As one's first reaction would be, Bennel responds to this bit of news with contempt and mortification. The event, however, proves significant in that Oliver demonstrates an immunity to the alien virus' intrusion.
Bennel and Driscoll trace the resistance to a less common condition stemming from chicken pox. From this break in the search for a cure, they and the rest of their brave analysts discover a way to overcome this predator. The only question now is will they be able to develop a vaccine before they get converted?
This movie had some moments of excitement. Attention grabbers were gratuitously and haphazardly tossed in, however. Since the story line was not original, you would expect the special effects would be. Instead they were sadly lacking. Suspense building was not one of its stronger points either.
Basically, one could tell the audience was wondering when this film would reach its climax. It was like the old cliche, the infamous question that bellows from a child who's fallen victim to an excruciatingly long car ride: "Are we there yet?"
Though Nicole Kidman and Jackson Bond both give fine acting performances, it just did not seem like it was enough to offer any redemption.
Unfortunately, for a movie whose tag line includes "Do not fall asleep", it is conceivable that its audience may do just that. Someone pass the coffee...
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