The Invasion (2007)
The Invasion (2007)
2007 saw the fourth and most recent remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, inspired by Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers from 1954. This new version isn't so much a remake of the previous versions that had come before it, but more so a reimagining, that is more applicable to the modern world. In the film, the alien spores come to earth attached to a space shuttle that crashes, spreading the debris and the spores. The spores spread like a virus, from the special features, it looks like the SARS virus that was a huge deal in the media around the time of the film's making was an inspiration for making the Invasion spread more like a virus pandemic. Now watching this in 2021 for the first time, the whole pandemic concept seems a lot more real and terrifying than it was in 2007 when it was released. I don't remember this film coming out, and that makes sense since it was a box office flop, and received generally negative reviews from the critics. So how does The Invasion stand up now in 2021?
The Invasion was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, with a screenplay by David Kajganich, with additional footage directed by James McTeigue and written by the Wachowskis. The film was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures, and Vertigo Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Brothers in 2007. The film was a box office flop, grossing $40.2 million with a budget of $65-80 million. The Invasion also received generally negative reviews by the critics, and currently holds a very low score on online film rating sites. Many critics cited the film as having a weak story, and too much focus on action and explosions, rather than actual story development and believability.
The Invasion stars Nicole Kidman as Dr. Carol Bennell, Daniel Craig as Dr. Ben Driscoll, Jackson Bond play Carol's son Oliver, Jeremy Northman plays Oliver's father Tucker Kaufman, and Jeffrey Wright plays Dr. Stephen Galeano. The film actually has a really decent cast, I love seeing Nicole Kidman as a strong heroine in the film, who fights to protect her son, and to keep herself from changing. Daniel Craig plays the best-friend/love interest of Kidman's character, and he helps her along the way. Then there is Jeffrey Wright's character who is the brains, who is working to find a cure for the alien spores, and working to create a vaccination to end the pandemic. I honestly thought this cast was great, and the characters were well developed.
The invasion is a film with urgency, and a pace that keeps building and pushing forward, until it hits its explosive climax. I feel like framing the film as a pandemic and there being a stand by non-infected human scientists to fight to find a cure and vaccine to stop the pandemic from continuing to spread and wipe out humanity, is a concept that works really well, and especially after the year of 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic the film has a stronger realism and urgency. To me this film really works, and I found myself excited and anxious during the tense action scenes. I think that the film is an effective horror and science-fiction film in the way that it frames it as a believable scenario of the alien spore spreading like a pandemic. We don't know what the returning space shuttles and probes could potentially bring back with them, and the way that the spores spread and how they interact with our DNA is based on viruses that exist in the world and how they work, so it makes this a more effective horror film. However, I feel like there are better and more effective pandemic films out there, like the film Contagion, who tell the pandemic science-fiction better, and I feel like compared to the two original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers films, that this one comes in a distant third as far as being a great film based on Jack Finney's novel. Though, that being said this is still a great film, and I hope that those who gave it negative reviews take another look at it now, and revaluate how effective this film really was as a science-fiction horror film.
I really enjoyed this film, and I do recommend checking it out if you come across a copy of it. This is in no way a must-see film, but I am very glad that I got a chance to watch it. After watching all four of the films based on The Body Snatchers, I have a strong appreciation for all four films, and I think they were all great in their own way, though the two original films, are must-see classics, I do feel like this film captures the urgency and the feeling of those films. I feel the panic, I feel the fear, and the anxiety that the characters are feeling in this pandemic that seems almost hopeless, and at times, it feels like there is no way that they could possibly succeed against this invasion. However I also appreciate that through science the human race finds hope, and the outcome is more optimistic and hopeful than in the past films. When looking at it like a virus pandemic, then we know that science can work to find out how it works and find potential vaccines and cures for the invading spores. I don't know maybe right now in the middle of January of 2021 in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, that glimmer of hope that this film offers, might be exactly what I needed. Maybe this wasn't a great film, but it was what I needed to see right now, and maybe for that alone was great, and deserves my praise. So like I said if you come across a copy of this film, I highly recommend checking it out.
The Invasion was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, with a screenplay by David Kajganich, with additional footage directed by James McTeigue and written by the Wachowskis. The film was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures, and Vertigo Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Brothers in 2007. The film was a box office flop, grossing $40.2 million with a budget of $65-80 million. The Invasion also received generally negative reviews by the critics, and currently holds a very low score on online film rating sites. Many critics cited the film as having a weak story, and too much focus on action and explosions, rather than actual story development and believability.
The Invasion stars Nicole Kidman as Dr. Carol Bennell, Daniel Craig as Dr. Ben Driscoll, Jackson Bond play Carol's son Oliver, Jeremy Northman plays Oliver's father Tucker Kaufman, and Jeffrey Wright plays Dr. Stephen Galeano. The film actually has a really decent cast, I love seeing Nicole Kidman as a strong heroine in the film, who fights to protect her son, and to keep herself from changing. Daniel Craig plays the best-friend/love interest of Kidman's character, and he helps her along the way. Then there is Jeffrey Wright's character who is the brains, who is working to find a cure for the alien spores, and working to create a vaccination to end the pandemic. I honestly thought this cast was great, and the characters were well developed.
The invasion is a film with urgency, and a pace that keeps building and pushing forward, until it hits its explosive climax. I feel like framing the film as a pandemic and there being a stand by non-infected human scientists to fight to find a cure and vaccine to stop the pandemic from continuing to spread and wipe out humanity, is a concept that works really well, and especially after the year of 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic the film has a stronger realism and urgency. To me this film really works, and I found myself excited and anxious during the tense action scenes. I think that the film is an effective horror and science-fiction film in the way that it frames it as a believable scenario of the alien spore spreading like a pandemic. We don't know what the returning space shuttles and probes could potentially bring back with them, and the way that the spores spread and how they interact with our DNA is based on viruses that exist in the world and how they work, so it makes this a more effective horror film. However, I feel like there are better and more effective pandemic films out there, like the film Contagion, who tell the pandemic science-fiction better, and I feel like compared to the two original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers films, that this one comes in a distant third as far as being a great film based on Jack Finney's novel. Though, that being said this is still a great film, and I hope that those who gave it negative reviews take another look at it now, and revaluate how effective this film really was as a science-fiction horror film.
I really enjoyed this film, and I do recommend checking it out if you come across a copy of it. This is in no way a must-see film, but I am very glad that I got a chance to watch it. After watching all four of the films based on The Body Snatchers, I have a strong appreciation for all four films, and I think they were all great in their own way, though the two original films, are must-see classics, I do feel like this film captures the urgency and the feeling of those films. I feel the panic, I feel the fear, and the anxiety that the characters are feeling in this pandemic that seems almost hopeless, and at times, it feels like there is no way that they could possibly succeed against this invasion. However I also appreciate that through science the human race finds hope, and the outcome is more optimistic and hopeful than in the past films. When looking at it like a virus pandemic, then we know that science can work to find out how it works and find potential vaccines and cures for the invading spores. I don't know maybe right now in the middle of January of 2021 in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, that glimmer of hope that this film offers, might be exactly what I needed. Maybe this wasn't a great film, but it was what I needed to see right now, and maybe for that alone was great, and deserves my praise. So like I said if you come across a copy of this film, I highly recommend checking it out.
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