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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
Jack Finney’s 1955 science-fiction novel The Body
Snatchers about a small town being invaded by plantlike seed pods drifting
from space to Earth which replace the bodies of sleeping humans with
extraterrestrial picture-perfect duplicates invading society has been adapted a
total of four times including two unofficial offshoots The Faculty and Assimilate. Initially adapted by Don Siegel in 1956 as a
Superscope widescreen thriller, the film was adapted again in 1978 by Philip
Kaufman in probably still the best and bleakest of the numerous silver screen
takes on this story. In third place is cult
director Abel Ferrara’s 1993 Body Snatchers, a scope widescreen star
studded Hollywood effort which channeled many of the vibes of the 1956 film but
had its own vision for the actual body snatching process.
Now here is Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s
2007 film (the second from Warner Brothers following Body Snatchers) The
Invasion, an expensive and at times dangerous (Nicole Kidman experienced a
car crash on set during the shoot) misfire adapted by none other than Bones and All screenwriter David Kajganich. Despite
the pedigree of the director’s chair, the studio reportedly disliked
Hirschbiegel’s first cut and brought in Lilly and Lana Wachowski to perform
rewrites with V for Vendetta director James McTeigue to shoot the newly
penned scenes. The result is maybe the
most neutered big dystopian sci-fi remake from Warner Brothers since Francis
Lawrence’s Will Smith starring I Am Legend also released the same
year. While that film was a smash at the
box office, it is no less of a pasteurized mediocrity that could’ve been great
as Arrow Video’s new 4K UHD limited edition of The Invasion shall show.
When a space shuttle crash lands to Earth with an alien
organism inside it, CDC director Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam) senses social
changes in people following the event and proceeds to investigate. Meanwhile ex-wife psychiatrist Carol Bennell
(Nicole Kidman) also begins noticing strange behavior in her neighbors, a
friend of her son and a patient played by Veronica Cartwright (sneakily making
a crossover cameo from the 1978 film) claims her husband is an imposter. Changing up the ingredients of how the body
snatchers operate to some degree, characters who fall asleep find themselves
self-coating in a plasticine skin after being regurgitated upon by the body snatchers. While the original films relied on pods with
tendrils that would siphon the humanity out of its victims, here they just
upchuck on each other and soon the infection starts. There’s also, in this version, a way to re-cure
yourself from infection by giving yourself an adrenaline shot. By the end of this overwrought slog, you find
yourself not caring Nicole Kidman, the savior of AMC Theaters, is more or less
walking in the same remake starlet footsteps treaded upon by Naomi Watts.
Yes the Joel Silver produced production, amassing near $80 million,
is handsome looking though the writing and interpretation with the rewrites and
reshoots in place by the Wachowskis and James McTeigue helps to undermine
everything unfolding. The cinematography
by Downfall cameraman Rainer Klausmann is slick and teal-blue leaning
with much of the same frenetic handheld camerawork as his dramatization of the
demise of the Third Reich. The score by John
Ottman on the other hand is nothing special, sounding very like most other popcorn
genre thrillers without subtlety or nuance.
The overqualified cast including Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jeffrey
Wright as one of the only doctors not yet infected are generally good but they’re
in service to a film unbecoming of their efforts.
Unquestionably the worst one, if not the only truly bad
apple of the group of otherwise splendid science-fiction horror films, The
Invasion while a critical and commercial failure still disregarded by genre
fans to this day nevertheless thanks to a new deal with Warner Brothers is
being given the deluxe limited-edition treatment on 4K UHD. If a then-maligned remake of a beloved intellectual
property failed to pick up steam then and doesn’t have a cult following now,
why lavish such love on it? Really, did
we honestly need a limited deluxe boxed set of the remake of Clash of the
Titans? While there are indeed some
titles that have amassed strong post-theatrical followings despite failing
initially, The Invasion isn’t one of them. Given we’re unlikely to see a Hirschbiegel
approved director’s cut anytime soon, The Invasion is damaged goods: a victim
of too many cooks in the kitchen pulling the film in too many disparate
directions until the damn thing doesn’t work at all.
--Andrew Kotwicki
