Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here, with a warning: what follows is going to get ugly.
I'm not going to lie to you; I wouldn't do that. The most recent, by-the-numbers remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is a fascinating disaster of a movie. Even the title is completely appropriate, since THE INVASION is basically a reduction of a film, not a fully realized piece but more of an outline that somehow skipped the script stage and went right from one-page treatment to the big screen. I'm not sure if the flaw with The Invasion lies in Oliver Hirschbiegel's (who directed the exceptional Best Foreign Language Film nominee DOWNFALL) direction, with James (V FOR VENDETTA) McTeigue's weeks of re-shoots, or just a flawed re-imagining from the word go, but this movie is actually a bigger cataclysm than the one depicted on the screen.
In the first five minutes of the film, a space shuttle teeming with alien microbes crashes, and the wicked spore-like substance immediately begins to infect Americans. It's never totally clear exactly what the alien spore does to humans, but the symptoms seem to include a glaze-like substance covering your body and a penchant for a dark-colored wardrobe. And when I say things move fast in THE INVASION, I don't mean the film is just fast-paced; I mean it flies by, leaving us little or no time to get to know the characters, the situations, the peril, the exact means by which the alien takes over a human body (there are no giant pods in this film, and a complete transformation is never really visualized). the film also leaves us with big, gaping holes in the plot. In the beginning of the film, Nicole Kidman has an argument with her ex-husband about child visitation; about two scenes later, we see her dropping their son off with the already-infected ex. Wha-huh?
The progression of the alien infestation across America is handled very poorly, which is actually kind of shocking since the film is set in Washington, D.C. It might have been cool to watch the infected humans actually target politicians and other world leaders at different embassies. There's an implication that this has happened, but it's never explicitly mentioned. And while I've always appreciated the political undercurrents of all of the film versions of BODY SNATCHERS, what the filmmakers attempt here by showing us how much better the world is under alien control is almost totally lost in the film's lightening speed.
The least interesting thing about the entire film is the story of psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), her son Oliver (Jackson Bond), her ex-husband (Jeremy Northam) and her best friend/neighbor/potential lover interest Ben (Daniel Craig). This is unfortunate, since this is 95 percent of the film. Throw in a nice-sized supporting role by Jeffrey Wright as Ben's co-worker, and you have one of the greatest casts to ever disappoint me this completely. Wright's character figures out the means of potentially curing all of the infected humans in a time span that could either be many months or a long weekend. It's impossible to tell. Time means nothing here. And the only thing faster than the ramp up of this film's plot is its climax, which reverses the devastation of, at the very least, all of the United States (and most likely the world) in about 27 seconds.
The problems: where to fucking begin? Nicole Kidman never looks bad in this movie and that's a major distraction. She's literally witnessing the end of civilization, and her hair is never out of place. Even when her hair is a little messy, it's that kind of "I just had furious sex with myself; want to join me?" messy. Her clothes are just a little too tight, and they show off her figure to perfection. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just one more distraction. After such colossal missteps as THE STEPFORD WIVES, FUR, and BEWITCHED, it may be time to finally admit that Kidman might be skating on a rough patch right now. It's not that she's in decent films that just aren't finding an audience; she's making shit choices. And in THE INVASION, she actually makes an undeniably bad movie just a little bit worse.
As much as I'd like to say that the film's bright shining beam of hope is Daniel Craig, don't get your hopes up, cupcake. Craig could not care less that he's in this nonsense, and he adds nothing resembling a spark to the proceedings. No, I didn't miss the oh-so-clever casting of Veronica Cartwright (from the 1978 BODY SNATCHERS remake) as one of Kidman's patients. Guess what? It doesn't help. And for those of you worshipers of Jeffrey Wright's work (myself included), The Invasion offers a rare opportunity to see him flailing like a grounded guppy. The poor man is given the film's worst dialog, and trust me when I say there's a heated battle for that distinction. Every single line he delivers feels flat. Remember than 27-second climax I mentioned? About 10 seconds of it is him explaining to reporters how he saved the earth. It would seem the script was designed to either move the plot forward at a blinding pace or to divert us from the story to some unnecessary subplot that burns up what precious little running time this movie has (about 93 minutes).
If there is some state of being beyond "pointless," then that is what THE INVASION achieves. This is a gutless, damaged mess that made me embarrassed for all those involved in its making. The film borders on -- and sometimes crosses over to -- unwatchable. The list of flaws is long and beyond repair.
Centuries from now, anthropologists may study this wreck of a production to show the rest of the how, even generations as advanced as this one, we still managed to give birth to monsters. There are always so many contenders for worst film in any given year, but 2007 may mark the first year in recent history to have a sure-fire winner.
Capone
