The Invasion is a classic Hollywood visual dumb-down of what might have been an effectively disturbing psychological thriller. 

After a space shuttle crashes near Washington DC, a flu-like virus begins to affect people in strange ways.  Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), a psychiatrist sees signs of odd behaviors in her patients, neighbors and her ex-husband Tucker (Jeremy Northam).  Carol recovers a disgusting ooze-like substance in her son’s Halloween candy, and takes it to her friend Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig), and it is eventually analyzed by Ben’s colleague Stephen Galeano (Jeffery Wright).  They find out that the “bug” that’s going around is actually an alien substance that attacks the body during REM sleep and affects the infected person’s DNA, mutating them into emotionless zombies whose only goal is to infect others and transform them as well.  Meanwhile, Tucker who is the head of the Center for Disease Control, is one of the first people infected and organizes a large scale vaccination to curb the spread of the odd strain of “flu”, which is actually meant to infect people before they know what’s happening.   Carol must rescue her son Oliver who was kidnapped by his father before she realized what was going on. 

The Invasion is another rendition of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, originally a 1955 novel by Jack Finney that inspired three other films, but the story is such that it could have been really poignant and unique most of the basic elements of the book and other film versions were changed;  namely, the body snatchers. There are no pod people, but an alien "virus", and the main character is female.  I can accept the fact that they beat us over the head with the "don't sleep" idea which is, in theory, a subtle commentary on how we have to remain alert, lest varying evils of the current era creep in and take over.  What’s unacceptable is the way they gloss over the political aspects that have traditionally kept these films from becoming silly horror flicks. The pandemic idea is fine, but the fear of biological warfare, for example, could have been a very interesting modern twist to the McCarthy era anti-communist propaganda that was going on at the time of the original film.  The catalyst for this whole fiasco, the space shuttle crash seems like a cop-out, but may manage to raise a smirk since it was called “The Patriot”, but it’s so rushed, that you may miss it.  And whether or not that’s supposed to be symbolic is a mystery since the whole setup of the film takes place in five minutes so there’s barely time to develop anything. There are some news clips about Iraq, and sudden “peace treaties”, thrown in for good measure, but basically it was disappointing how the filmmakers bombarded us with their themes in such a convoluted and clichéd manner.   

Unfortunately this is a classic case of too many cooks spoiling the soup.  Oliver Hirschbiegel is the credited director for this film, however he did not have the final say in the mess that is now being released after more than two years since filming began.  Apparently after viewing the original cut, Warner Brothers decided it wasn’t up to par and brought in the Wachowski Bros. and their “protégé” James McTeigue, of V for Vendetta fame to re-vamp the film with more action. 

The beginning, end, and any semblance of explanation in between was rushed, voiding The Invasion of suspense.  Regardless of who directed what, the editor was clearly suffering from some sort of chronology disorder and an affinity for useless montages where flashes from the end of the film play at the beginning, and vice versa, for no apparent reason. 

Congrats to Nicole for having perky boobs at age 40, a feat which is clearly easier than maintaining one consistent accent throughout the film.  Granted, it must be at least somewhat difficult for any actor to speak in a way that is unnatural for them, but if so much of this movie had to be re-shot, why didn't they re-shoot her faulty accent moments? Apparently action is more important than continuity. 

Ironically the best acting on her part is when she’s trying to act emotionless to fool the zombies.  She seems to spend the rest of the time trying to look flawless, rather than convince us we should care about her character.  The rest of the talent in this film was completely wasted on poorly developed characters that, incredibly, were doing everything off camera; only coming on screen to update Carol Bennell. 

Although this film doesn’t even bother to set up any suspense, I won’t give away the ending, but it’s irritating how “the machine” doesn’t bother to validate what we just sat through with more than five minutes of bad lines and weak thematic nuances.  The Invasion is disappointing as a whole, because it really had potential to put a 21st century spin on a classic story.  Hopefully a director’s cut will be shown on the DVD, when it comes out, to appease curiosity on whether or not Oliver Hirschbiegel, and screenwriting novice Dave Kajganich could’ve made a better film on their own.  Don’t waste you’re time seeing it before then.