"The Invasion" = Crappy Movie

[I hate to mar a week of two good entries with something redundant, but here's a quick review of The Invasion for a hip British mag called Disorder. It's the UK, so they get movies late, which is why I reviewed it so late in the game. Nuff said.]

In “The Invasion,” the latest incarnation of Jack Finney’s novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a virus from outer space turns the world’s people into a bunch of expressionless bores. Sure, this swiftly ends world hunger, war, genocide, etc., but there’s a catch: if the aliens aren’t standing around perfectly calm, they’re violently puking virus juice on the unaffected. That’s creepy and gross.

Through schizophrenic, flashback-heavy editing, the sexy/heroic scientist trio, psychiatrist Nicole Kidman, doctor Daniel Craig and biology whiz Jeffrey Wright, suggest that life is best lived with some emotion. But the movie draws simplistic and boring conclusions, just as the aliens would’ve wanted.

Smoke plenty of weed beforehand if you want to feel something for this movie. That way, on the way home, tiresome passerby at least might make you a bit paranoid.