The Invasion (2007)

I wasn’t too excited to see The Invasion back when it was in theaters. Now that Daniel Craig is the new Bond – and I hated Casino Royale – I haven’t been too eager to see him in much of anything. However, with his apparent new pal Nicole Kidman teaming up with him in The Invasion (and again later on in 2007 in Golden Compass (2007)), I figured I’d give it a shot. After all, if it’s got Nicole Kidman so it can’t be that bad, right?

Nicole Kidman does a decent job with her role. Starting out as a professional psychiatrist, her character deals with troubles on a daily basis. Because of this, and an apparently rough divorce, she’s become a bit detached from the world, seeing it through clinical eyes – at least until she gets home to her son, played by newcomer Jackson Bond. Only with him does she allow herself to become emotional again.

Of course, this sets her up for a drastic change, as The Invasion – since it is another remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is all about an alien takeover that removes human emotion from it’s hosts. Suddenly, when displaying emotions is the worst possible thing she can do, she struggles to overcome the sudden outbursts that begin emerging from behind her professional mask.

While this isn’t the juiciest role Kidman could have picked, it’s got enough for her to sink her teeth into, and – when the director gives her space and limited interruption – she is easily able to display to the viewer the struggle she is going through. With a setup like that given breathable life by accomplished actress Nicole Kidman, most would think the movie is terrific, right?

As predicted, Daniel Craig is once again stoic and completely lacking emotionally – and that’s even before the alien invasion gets under way! It boggles the mind that despite his myriad of horrible performances, not only does he keep getting to make movies, but now he’s the new Bond! Talk about rewarding bad behavior!

Unfortunately, rather than take it’s cue from Nicole’s erstwhile performance, the rest of The Invasion leans instead towards utter calamity and confusion. It starts off from the very first sequence, as the film opens to Kidman’s character ransacking a drug store to chug Mountain Dew and pop pills, desperate to stay awake. Without so much as a pause, the next sequence shows the Space Shuttle crashing (bringing with it the alien intruder), and the viewer is already confused, despite the film being less than 10 minutes old!

Sure, lots of films start out by throwing the viewer a snippet out of the middle of the film and then backtracking to the beginning – but The Invasion doesn’t stop there. Instead, it keeps going to flashback/flashforward mode (sometimes it’s hard to tell which) in such nonsensical fashion that the viewer wthout giving the viewer much time to sort through the previous sequence before tossing another one at them.

While this could work if the film was able to build on the twisted sense of time this presents them with, but alas, they seem to ignore it entirely.

The scenes in the film are at times ridiculous in their idiocy as well. For example, one major cause of the outbreak is thansk to Jeremy Northam’s character, and uppity-up in the CDC (Center for Disease Control). After spending time in full Hazmat gear checking out an unknown substance that is discovered attached to the space shuttle debris, he walks out of the tent and is presented with a piece of the Space Shuttle by a young girl. Despite having just been informed of the possible dangers, he does not don protective gloves, and instead reaches out to grab it, and of course is promptly cut. Nursing his finger, he drives home – and tells no one. In fact, he’s totally unconcerned about it. Um…huh?

So despite ridiculous scenes like that, Nicole’s performance still gives the viewer hope that that was a slight misstep, and the movie is going to get better. And, for a little while, it seems to, as Nicole’s character gradually becomes aware that some of the people she and her patients know are acting rather unemotional. As this buildup continues, the viewer starts actually getting into the film – until the buildup is dashed by the director, who then puts in a scene where all the hows and whys are explained in a concise and rather boring speech.

The film then degenrates from it’s promising begininngs into just another B-movie action flick, as scenes of car chases and heated foot chases are tossed in almost at random. It’s almost as if the alien collective is watching, shrugs, says “well, now they know our diabolical plan (evil laugh)” and gets down to the business of enslaving the rest of the humans by force.

And then there’s the inevitable social commentary. Apparently, even though all humans become mindless automatons, the aliens insist it’s a good thing, as it puts an end to war and brings peace across the world. Great, is that all it takes? Why hasn’t this already been done?

Seriously though, while this seems to be a great message to put forth to get viewers thinking (is the invasion actually a bad thing?), it is badly used in The Invasion. With people fed up over the constant terrorism, school shootings, etc. going on in the world today, some viewers may long for a world without them, so may overly sympathize with the “bad” alien invasion. Also, it helps present the idea that “natural” humans are all about war and death (in fact, this very point is actually stated early on in the film) – again, not a positive message.

After seeing this mess, it’s a bit surprising that this is the finished version – even after another director was brought in (James McTiegue, known for V For Vendetta (2006) and the script was partially rewritten by The Wachowski Brothers (Matrix (1999)). Despite the fact this seems like a dumb idea (two directors = two different visions of the film), this also doesn’t make any sense. After all, the film has already been made THREE TIMES BEFORE. What kind of script problems could there have been?

Aside from the efforts of Nicole Kidman, almost every other single part of the film – the script, the editing, the director, and of course Daniel Craig – seems to actively conspire to make this the worst movie of all time. Thankfully, Nicole is able to bring it somewhat out of the dumps, but even she can’t do it single-handedly, and the movie remains a disaster. Stay away from The Invasion, and go watch one of the other versions instead. You’ll be glad you did.