The Invasion (2007)

This Movie Is About: an alien epidemic that takes over the Earth. Well, not quite the Earth when the movie begins. In fact, it's only really a small town in the US. But don't worry, the epidemic gets bigger. It starts off when a person gets effected, then once that person sleeps, the alien life-form uses the sleep hormones to alter that person's genes. And then that person becomes your friendly neighborhood alien with no emotions and no other purpose but to make everyone else like they are. Sounds like fun except for those stupid humans that keep getting in the way. One of those stupid humans is Dr. Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) who is a psychiatrist and a well known one at that. Her stupid human best-friend who wants to become more than friends, Dr. Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) are the only two people who are not aliens it seems like. They, along with their scientist friend, must escape the city into a quarantine zone. But not so fast! Carol has a son who's with his stepfather who's acting very very strange but Carol's son has not been affected due to his frequent text messages. Could Carol's son be the cure for this epidemic? Of course he is, and thus the movie begins with the humans trying to get out of the city and Carol trying to get her son out of the grasps of her ex-husband and in the meantime, save the world.

You Should Watch This Movie Because sometimes a movie is worth watching based on the premise along. And this one definitely is one of those. With an interesting concept along with an easy to understand problem, it creates suspense by setting simple rules to play with and manipulate. The simple fact that the humans who are infected can't sleep, creates immediate dangers and is actually quite exciting see all the ways a person can stay up. Furthermore, this movie has quite the star power and even if you are not a Nicole Kidman fan, Daniel Craig is there for your star fix.

What's Hot: The aliens are pretty cool and it is interesting when a person turns into an alien. The transformation is handled nicely and even the rapid cuts away from the action works nicely to replicate the struggles in a person's mind. In fact, the editing of this film is very well done in that they cut away from the action and present time quite a bit in order to show what happens in the future and then they carry on right after the cut. It's kind of like fast-forwarding through all the exposition and just getting into the good stuff. This does make the movie feel faster because it's shorter due to the edits. But at least it doesn't make it boring as you are thrown into action after action. And the characterization and exposition doesn't ever stop.

What's Not Hot: When I said that a movie is worth watching because of the premise, I didn't mean it made it good. And this movie definitely fell short of the promise. When I heard of this movie I was thrilled at the idea and even the trailer looked very good. But once you really get into the meat of the film, there really isn't much there. The story is standard as Carol goes through all the steps that a hero should and the result is predictable half way through the film. Or even from the beginning if you've seen the trailer. They don't go beyond anything amazing with the rules they've created and only do okay in stretching the imagination with the set up. The thriller parts of the movie isn't all that thriller and the emotional parts aren't that emotional because of the one dimensional characterization for Daniel Craig's character. I mean, come on! If they only pushed his character a bit more than the lonely perfect guy best friend, then it would have made it a helluva better in the end, in my opinion.

Last Comments: The Invasion is a good attempt of the 1956 remake but it comes up short for sure. There are some good moments and some excellent editing to make this film at least moderately thrilling. But anyone who wants something serious and at least a bit political will be disappointed. This film does a whole bunch of things but never one that stands out. The insect politics are light and the emotional impact of people losing their right to vote and free thought are light. Even the action and the thrilling parts of the movie are light. I guess you can call this a light movie which was something I was not expecting. And too bad because it did have a lot of potential.

Breaking It Down:
Story: 7.0 (Jack Finney: novel, David Kaiganic: screenplay)
Direction: 8.8 (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Acting: 7.5
Cinematography: 7.0
Music/Sound: 6.5

Entertainment Value: 7.0 (not an average)