The Invasion (2008, DVD)

The Invasion (2007), based off the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the book The Body Snatchers (Jack Finney) is a taste of the past, as we remember those frightening cocoon people who s mind and bodies were absorbed through alien skin. I wasn t really sure what to expect because I hadn t seen the original movie in so long, but I am pretty much happy to see Nicole Kidman in anything. I ve loved her since her Tom Cruise days, and I am so happy that she got away from the couch-jumping nut case. However, I must say that The Invasion was a disappointment for me. I didn t really enjoy the movie all that much.

A space shuttle has crashed, scattering pieces of debris all over America. When people touch the debris, they absorb some kind of virus. The virus (which scientists think has something to do with aliens), attacks when people are asleep. It covers it s infected victims with some kind of extra skin which looks like gauze and goop. When the people wake up, they are emotionless shells of what they used to be. Their (The Infected s) goal is to get everyone to fall asleep and get the disease.

Nicole Kidman is Carol Bennell. At first she is, like everyone else, oblivious to what is going on. She finds it odd that her son Oliver s (Jackson Bond) father Tucker (Jeremy Northam), calls out of the blue wanting to see Oliver. Carol is a psychologist, and one of her patients is complaining that her husband isn t himself. He s usually very abusive and horrible to her. When Tucker is extremely odd, Carol starts to wonder. The movie progresses and Carol finds that she is one of the only uninfected people left. She cannot fall asleep or she will succumb to the disease. Tucker has Oliver hidden someplace, and she must stay awake and act like an infected person (void of personality, numb) so that she can find Oliver. As a few scientists race for the cure, the infected people have a different idea. They want to live in a world where there is peace and no violence, but then again, no emotion and no independent thought.

The movie is a little bit entertaining. I want to mention that Nicole Kidman is getting very strange looking. It s like she s trying to compete with Joan Rivers or Michael Jackson to see how many times one s face can go under the knife. She really needs to lay off the plastic surgery. She did a fairly good job as Carol, but I thought she fell sort of flat a bit and it definitely wasn t her best performance. The little boy who played the part of her son did a tremendous portrayal of a scared, confused kid.

This movie was very quick paced, which I appreciated. It kept rolling and there was a lot of action. However, it was so predictable I could have said the lines before they were delivered. I don t really know what the point was for this remake. It s just another version of Body Snatchers, and the original, and even the second one were better. I wish I hadn t paid to see this film. It s definitely one to catch on some random cable channel a couple of years after the movie is out on DVD.

I didn t find The Invasion scary because I knew what would happen. There is no real surprise element. I found mediocre, and I could have spent two hours doing something else with my time. I wouldn t recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good horror or thriller, because it s just not that good. I would also hope that Nicole Kidman is going to let her face rest for awhile. I saw an article online, I think it may have been on aol, which compared her face to that of a bat. It was fairly accurate..

2 stars. Just didn t do it for me.