The Invasion (2007) Review

By KC Morgan

The Invasion, released in 2007 and available on DVD as of January 29, 2008, is a remake of the 1956 science fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And though it’s a movie based on a weird alien “epidemic” which sweeps the world, that’s not even the most unbelievable aspect of the film. No, not with Nicole Kidman in the lead and 007 actor Daniel Craig running interference.

The movie opens with a confusing jumble of edits in a single scene, Kidman running through a looted pharmacy slugging Mountain Dew and choking down a handful of pills. After this oddly disjointed mélange, the movie fully begins and a U.S. space shuttle immediately crashes. Best to put the confusing and graphically horrific scenes up front, right? The space shuttle brings with it - get this - an unknown “space spore” of sorts which seems able to withstand most anything.

Nicole Kidman unbelievably plays a psychiatrist - Carol. Her compassion manner borders on patronizing in an early scene, where she’s listening to a patient describe how her husband has drastically changed. Rather self-absorbed, Kidman comes slowly to realization that people (like her patient’s husband) are fundamentally changing. By the time she figures it out, it’s already too late to do much more than duck and run.

She’s a single mom and divorcee who belatedly realizes her own ex-husband has transformed, becoming a creature devoid of emotion but full of rationale. Because there would be very little movie otherwise, Carol unwittingly places her own son (Oliver) into the hands of her changed ex and drives off, blithely unaware, in a completely unbelievable manner. In the movie, she hasn’t seen her husband or had contact with him for quite some time. Suddenly he’s asking to see their son and acting bizarre to boot, but Kidman doesn’t even bother to go inside his house. Throughout the rest of the movie she’s portrayed as a do-or-die mommy, making this plot thoroughly confusing.

The relationship between Carol and her love interest gets paraded out next, mostly because there’s no place else to put it. Daniel Craig (Bond, James Bond) plays a fellow doctor and head-over-heels for her neighbor in a thoroughly unconvincing and accent-rich manner (or maybe that’s because I’m busy gnashing my teeth every time I see him).

Naturally, Kidman’s character is left virtually alone to battle an entire city of changed souls. Her son is miraculously immune to the disease because of a rare pox-like virus he contracted in his youth, so quite logically the entire might of the U.S. military is intent upon rescuing the pair of them. By the way, you’re supposed to accept absolutely everything with unfailing belief throughout this highly unlikely portrayal.

This save-the-son scene, of course, only occurs after the saw-it-coming-a-mile-away scene where the love interest himself gets transformed. Playing the role of hysterical mother to the hilt, Carol almost gives in to the desire to join the calm, cool and collected humans who have contracted the virus but then flees when she discovers her son will be killed because he’s immune. So, of course, they race through the streets in a stolen car while angry viral humans hang off the vehicle. Next, they take a panicky flight through a building to reach the roof where a helicopter waits. After this “climax,” the movie quickly ends amid a collection of scenes that show humans returning to normal.

A word of caution. Confusing edits and scene changes, along with a few nauseating camera moves, can cause annoyance. They’re actually meant to create tension, but the effect is somehow lost when all along the audience sort of wants to see Nicole Kidman turn into one of the infected.

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