The Invasion

Plot synopsis:
An alien lifeform, much like a fungus or spore, clings to the space shuttle Patriot as it crashes back to Earth, spreading tainted debris from Texas to Washington, D.C. Curious onlookers steal, touch and even sell the parts on eBay, much like what happened with the Columbia disaster. This in turn infects many people, robbing them of their emotions when they enter REM sleep.One of the first people infected is Tucker (Jeremy Northam), a CDC director investigating the crash. Once he is overcome, Tucker uses the CDC to spread the disease further, disguising the spores as flu inoculations. In a panic from a made-up "flu bug," people rush to get "inoculated," later becoming pod people when they sleep that night.Tucker's ex-wife, psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), knows something is amiss and, after locating several patients who say their loved ones are "imposters," teams up with love interest and fellow doctor Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) to uncover what is really going on.With the help of Ben's friend Galeano (Jeffrey Wright), a biologist, they find out about the spore and discover that it takes over the brain during REM sleep. They also find out that people who have suffered diseases that affect the makeup of the brain, such as syphilis or ADEM, are immune to the spore because their previous diseases prevent the spore from "latching on" to the brain matter. Carol's son Oliver (Jackson Bond) is immune to the spore because of scarlet fever-type symptoms he had as a young child. Also seen immune is one of Carol's patients, Wendy Lenk, who escaped to her sister's house. On her way to her office, Carol sees several people crying and distraught and a homeless man having some sort of fit. When she gets to her office, Carol remembers what Wendy said about her husband not being her husband and searches on the Internet for similar responses. Suddenly, her secretary (infected) makes her favorite tea and infects it to spread the disease to her. Carol is about to drink the tea but receives a call from Ben and she leaves.Carol meets with Ben, Ludmilla, Stephan and Ludmilla's aide Jill and witness Yorish's transformation into one of the infected. Carol attempts to take a photograph of him, partially bringing him out of REM sleep and causing him to have a cardiac arrest. Carol then leaves to get her son back from Tucker. When she arrives at his house, he and several colleagues attempt to seize her and he infects her by spitting on her face. She escapes and returns to Nem at Ludi's house. They leave when Henryk returns, infected with some other people. Stephan and Jill safely arrive at a base outside Baltimore where they and several Nobel Prize winners attempt to make a cure for the alien virus. Carol and Ben separate to find Oliver, who tells Carol his location by texting her. She is chased by several infected and pretends to act infected when Gene, Tucker's neighbor's child, finds her. He takes her back to Tucker's mother's house, where the four dine. Carol pretends to be one of them, and secretly tells Ben her location. She finds Oliver in a back room and they reunite. Gene interrupts them, and Carol knocks him out and leaves with Oliver.She sees several normal people attempting to pose as infected, including one woman who is dragged out of her car, another who two cops chase down and subdue. To help stay awake, Carol heads to a pharmacy and takes an assortment of prescription amphetamines from Ritalin to Dexedrine. She encounters Ben, who has come to seek them, but discovers that he is infected. She uses the gun retrieved earlier from an infected/transforming police officer against Ben and several people who she locked inside a closet. She kills them all except Ben, who she shoots in the leg. Shortly after a brief fight to get away, some of Ben's colleagues pick up the two on a rooftop via helicopter. They head with Galeano at the base of operations. Scientists use Oliver's blood to create a airborne vaccine. Because the spore latches on to the brain during REM sleep, no one remembers a thing when they are cured. They feel as though they have woken from a dreamless nap.Both Ben and Carol are actually sympathetic towards the pod people and what they had to offer through a perfect world at the end of the movie, when they read the paper and see "business as usual" (other tragedies, war, violent news, etc.).

Tags: suspenseful, flashback

Review:
To create a world in which everyone is equal, rational, no war, no disease, no famine, no inequality is what the body snatchers are offering...and for this movie goer, there was at least one point in the film in which I found myself asking whether that would be so bad.
I won't say that ice cold Kidman is the right choice to depict a desperate mom, but given that her role is to often look emotionless (so she can pass as another "pod people") she doesn't do too badly.Now, the suits didn't like that and called those soft-brained Wachowski bros to make it -supposedly- more mainstream.
Plus the fact that they give Kidman a kid in this film had me leery for I often grow weary of female leads in suspense/action/horror films having to protect children instead of other adults like male leads do especially if the kids are annoying.So, I almost didn't see "The Invasion" after reading and hearing all of the complaints about no plot, no real character development, bad acting and poor directing/editing.Yet, I finally agreed to just go with my gut and take a chance on a matinée show of "The Invasion." Boy, am I glad that I did, not only because I did not have to pay the outrageous full price of ten bucks but I actually liked this film.Despite what some are saying this film does have a plot.
People are actually doing things that lead to other plot points like the whole deal with Veronica Cartwright's character and Kidman's character leaving her son with the ex-husband.
Despite all the heavy and (quite) ugly criticism this movie received, it had a fair cast and it isn't too often that Nicole Kidman is in something completely awful.
I decided the latter was the right course and with this in mind, I watched "The Invasion".The film opens with a very frantic Carol Bennell (played by Nicole Kidman) rummaging through the shelves of a pharmacy.
Wherein the other snatcher films, while the victim sleeps their body rotted away and their alien replacement is created within a giant pea-pod, in "The Invasion" the process is never identified.
Nicole Kidman, of whom I'm usually not a big fan, is quite good looking in this film and her performance is more than adequate.
Let me start with the feel of the film.If you have seen ANY of the original or re-makes of the "Invasion" films, you know we have that "Who do I/Can I Trust" theme, so you won't really be overly sold on the theme alone, soley based on the fact you aren't going to be shocked if someone turns out not to be who they say they are.Let me take us onto the Cast of this film.In the originals/re-makes, we have gotten ourselves an overall strong performance from the characters.
Then the rest of the cast has a mixed feeling amongst them, mostly because a lot of them don't seem to want to sell the movie to anyone.I guess the directing isn't bad, so i won't attack.But really there is no need to this is film, it doesn't do anything for anyone.
This uninspired remake of a classic sci-fi paranoia movie from almost five decades ago serves no purpose other than to invade your hard earned savings and cure chronic sleep deprivation.Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig were obviously bored too; they blandly drone out poorly written lines and wander around in a bewildered state (that goes for the supporting cast and extras, too).
You see, in The Invasion, they have done away with the sophisticated method for turning people into emotionless, zombie-like drones from the 3 previous films.
An alien, plant-like pod would discreetly start growing next to and entangling itself with a host body while he or she slept, and then it would create an exact clone body of his or hers, and then destroy the host.But all that is way too "outdated" and not nearly so "hip" enough for The Invasion remake from 2007, in which the whole podification process is discarded and in it's place, you guessed it: projectile vomit.
The aliens, the pod people from all the previous 3 films are completely absent in The Invasion and in it's place you have humans who turn each other into drones by literally spewing projectile vomit onto each other.
The trademark, scary, much-beloved alien shriek and finger pointing from all 3 previous films is also absent from The Invasion.The acting in this movie is universally terrible across the board.
One thing is certain: her face certainly does not move at all in The Invasion, and there is little if any discernible way to tell Nicole from a projectile vomit drone victim at any point in this movie.
They are equally emotionless due to bad acting on Kidman's part.Whilst driving in this movie, Nicole Kidman completely turns around - while the vehicle is moving - to look at and talk to her son who is in the backseat.
If anyone watches this movie and then comes to think that to turn around to look at and talk to someone in the backseat while driving is acceptable behavior, that could tragically lead to unnecessary fatalities in real-life.
Although I have never seen the original "Ivasion of the Body Snatchers" movie, this film definitely turned out to be one of my favorites of 2007.
Good performances from Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright.Appears in secondary role Veronica Carwight as deranged wife, she acted in the second version by Philip Kauffman, besides cameo role by Jeff Wincott as a security agent,he's a B series star.
"Invasion" isn't to me a classic, yet it's entertaining and worth a watch with some interesting moments and good acting from Nicole Kidman.
If you love alien invasions, action, suspense and thriller movies; this film is all you.
I would really like to ask these people,"Did you even WATCH the movie at all?" First of all, the performances on the part of both Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman were absolutely stunning.
"The Invasion" is a science fiction movie concerning an alien epidemic which threatens to extinct the human species in a genetic scenario.Cast wise, Great Talent but wasted ruthlessly.
Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jeremy Northam are the finest actors of this generation, but to find the reason as to why they opted to be part of a movie that has nothing special to befit their credentials is challenging.
Even though all of them gave good performances, but sometimes a few positives can't redress for grotesque film making."The Invasion" strength is its cast or the way the big stars were lured into being part of something so ludicrous.
after seeing the 1978 version,this one sadly doesn't even come close, i know they tried to "modernize" the virus and make it interesting for this day and age, you know,,space shuttle crashes,, i don't have a problem with that,, what i have the problem with is all the car chases,, crashes,, lack of character development,, nicole seems to be undressing a lot in this movie, which isn't a bad thing, but after her it seemed like character development just seemed to take a back seat.
"The Invasion" is a film about a Washington psychiatrist who unearths the origin of an alien epidemic, she also discovers her son might be the only way it can be stopped and it appears to be another adaptation of the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" book.The film starts when a space shuttle lands on earth launching the movie into a fast paced (however sometimes nauseating) thrill ride and assumes that the audience already know what is going after the fourth installment of the franchise, however even if someone has never seen the earlier installments it is very easy for someone to pick up on the story and the plot.
With ten minutes to go the film is still a sophisticated Thriller, yet after that it turns into some mad action flick, however that is not director Oliver Hirschbiegel's fault as Warner Brother's pushed him aside to re-direct what they thought audiences would like.Overall this film is a sophisticated and enjoyable thriller with excellent performances (mainly from Kidman and Bond), yet the ending and a few other scenes totally flawed by re-shoots nearly ruin the film, who knows, maybe one day we will see a true Directors cut of what Hirschbiegel truly wanted in this film, but until then we still have this enjoyable, solid thriller, which is an OK adaptation of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney.
After having seen "The invasion of the Body Snatchers" 1978 version and half of the original I have to say that this movie completely misses the mark.
I enjoyed watching it , I did set an open mind,I did not expect it to be exactly as the previous remakes.I really like Nicole Kidman here,she was full of emotions,I admired the kid too a very smart kid too.This film is an original .I am looking forward to Nicole's next movie.She is a dedicated actress and this is important to the longevity of a movie career.This movie is a movie on its own right since you need to be interjecting your own identity not a down right copy.I hope other movie goers see this film as its own and did not intend to be a zerox copy of the original which was on different era.This film carried its own.My friends like it too....
I found this film "The Invasion" was nor good or bad, and as the second remake of the "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" they could have made it better by not making it at all.
maybe in another twenty or thirty years there might be another "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" with the thing that we would be worried of then, and it would probably be called something different like Body Snatchers or some other abbreviated name.Obviously this film has some action which nearly all 21st century audiences are attracted to.
If you really enjoyed "The Invasion" I do not recommend the first two "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" but if you like the plot of the film more than unneeded action I do recommend these films.My opinion on this movie is that there is good acting and good directing but the story line could be improved.
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.
There's genuine acting talent in this movie (even the child actors are not too annoying) and a standard sci-fi horror plot which is not too bad.Unfortunately the finished article is less than the sum of its parts.This movie needed to invoke that feeling of dread and creeping paranoia as the events unfold, but it never reaches that level of suspense.Kidman has difficulty delivering characters you care about and Craig's "Britishness" just seems odd in this setting.
"The Invasion," starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, is the fourth in the quasi-franchise based on Jack Finney's 1955 novel "The Body Snatchers" about an alien invasion where people die and their bodies become pod-versions of their former selves.
Now she can add a new genre to her great film career even though "The invasion" is only horror on paper, because there is hardly any blood or gore to be found (which I think is a good thing).
"The invasion" is a good movie and one of the finest thriller-horror remakes ever made.
However, the storyline remains perfectly intact and still has the ability to make you think Nicole Kidman is not wooden as critics has said she is, the action is very good and fast paced, and the movie never feels slow or dull.
He also has a good amount of chemistry with Nicole Kidman which makes me hope that the pair star together in a movie again at some point.
From here on though the cast is a bit superfluous, Jeffrey Wright delivers a mediocre performance in a pretty pointless role, while Jackson Bond pretty much ticks all the right boxes for cute kid, although at times he is a little too cute and happy given the situation he is actually in.The critics have also condemned the pacing and way the movie is executed.
The fourth cinematic incarnation of "The Invasion" based from Jack Finney's novel "The Body Snatchers," is an uneven film devoid of scares and emotional impact one might wonder whether its theme of an alien microorganism starting a populace of stoic individuals might have a bearing on the plot's structure.Nicole Kidman stars as Carol Bennell, a psychiatrist recently divorced from her husband (Jeremy Northam) and their son Oliver (Jackson Bond) is staying with Dad for the weekend.
This makes it rather difficult to say whether the film's absence of real scares and lack of intelligent insight is out of Hirschbiegel's professional capacity.It doesn't help that newcomer Dave Kajganich's screenplay reduces Kidman and Craig's acting chops into roles that don't require much of a stretch except for them to look uncannily good even after a car chase.
Get this movie watched by somebody to whom Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig doesn't ring a bell and I assure you they would say its more like a series from Sci-fi channel.
The acting all around is pretty spectacular and nobody misses a mark by showing any emotion when it's not required.Nicole Kidman stars as Carol Bennell a woman who notices the strange things happening around her, but the government's decision to keep everything quiet and publicize this alien invasion as a simple flu leads to her not realizing what's happening until it's too late.
I've never been a fan of Nicole Kidman, but I must say that her performance impressed me here.Up to this point, the film is a knockout and was looking to become one of the best of the year and something that I couldn't really understand why everyone hated so much.
Daniel Craig co-stars as a Doctor/boy friend who basically supports Kidmans efforts to save her family.The movies is a long chase film, across trains, cars, foot races.
Now, I've have never seen the original versions of this film; I've never read The Body Snatchers, so I came into this with no expectations.
"The Invasion" was actually a love it/ hate it film.Frankly don't go to see this movie if you are expecting to see the original movie with an updated cast.
Based on the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".Every element of this movie is well done and great, with the exception of one important factor- the director.
Nicole Kidman can act, and even if the part is good, the part still has to be supported by the rest of the movie.
The basic story of ourselves being taken over by 'the other' has endless possibilities, and can be used to illuminate the darker corners of the human soul, our paranoia (as the original did with the fears over Communism etc), but I am afraid that this version fails to do this after a promising start.The concept of the Space Shuttle crash landing back on earth, bringing with it some form of alien life, is actually rendered fairly believable at the start of this film, and the change in behaviour in some of the characters, especially that played by Jeremy Northam, is well done.
It doesn't get deep from the explanation to the transformation of the pod people but goes to what makes these movies so good and eerie.Reshoots done by the Wachowski brothers must at least mean one thing: The action scenes are great!
"For better or worse, we're human again..." While suffering bad reviews, comparing it to the two previous renditions of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 2007's The Invasion works as a pretty good suspense thriller, mainly because of Nicole Kidman's strong performance.
Wonder how director Oliver Hirschbiegel's original cut was, as the movie had to be reshot and redirected by the Wachowskis (prolly not mainstream enough?).This is the German director's Hollywood debut, and he tells the story of a strange pandemic that turns humans into zombie-like closet aliens in a flurry of flash-forwards.
The translation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers into this new movie completely transforms the film from Sci Fi scary to a cliffhanger suspense movie.
Perhaps I would have liked the movie a bit more if I did not know the originals, which were true classics.Best thing about this movie is of course Nicole Kidman, but you can see her in many better films!.
Of course, what makes this movie even better is the presence of Ms. Nicole Kidman, who proves once again that she is Hollywood's premier actress and easily the best looking.
I liked the first 30 minutes of the film, but the rest of the movie is bad and a little boring.I liked the performance of Nicole Kidman who is great at any role she takes, but I didn't like the performance of Daniel Craig who looked lost in this movie.I have read that the final cut of the director Oliver Hirschbiegel was changed to introduce more action sequences, I think that is why the movie changes a lot from the first 30 minutes (which were good).
In this film, Nicole Kidman, who does a very good scared look, is the terrified person who represents all of us.
Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig are good.
If a movie calls into question that which it is about, can it be good?In some of the films final lines, Daniel Craig says that individuality is wrong and that a new world order could finally rise due to the "boring-face" disease.
You can put the movie on and be entertained by the suspense and seeing Nicole Kidman be chased by weird stale people.
The fact that Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig were in it helped.The story was just OK.As I loved the original body snatcher movies.