Movie review: The Invasion

by John P. Meyer

At its core - or, should I say, its SPORE? - The Invasion is really a zombie movie in body snatcher clothing. O.K., so the zombies (or, in the case of this movie, the pod people) are slightly more socially aware than your typical zombies, but they still want more than anything to pin you down and do their nasty thang to you - even though for this lot that doesn't involve flesh eating. (In fact, it's quite the opposite, if you get my spew. EW!)

With a nod to the gods of eminent watchability, the film begins with a lingering tracking shot of Nicole Kidman (whose character is called Carol Bennell) traipsing around the domicile in her undershorts and a clingy tank top, looking all willowy and undeniably edible (sorry, zombies!), preparing for work while simultaneously rousting her young son Oliver (Jackson Bond) out of his electric train-induced stupor. (Electric train? Hasn't this household heard about video games? Or the internet? HELLO!) Unfortunately, she eventually dons additional clothing items, at which point those of us who've been concentrating on her willowiness note that she's done her hair in this short blond shoulder-length cut, which makes her look a whole lot like her Aussie gal pal, Naomi Watts. [Hm. Naomi and Nicole gone walkabout. White bread Vegemite sandwiches. Ayers Rock and didgeridoo. Shrimp on the barbee...] Where was I?

Meanwhile, the space shuttle is breaking up in the damn atmosphere again, and this time there's more than foam tile debris raining down over East Texas - there's stuff that looks like fibrous cow chips, and God help you if you prick your finger on one of the spiky bits because no one else is likely to be able to. It's a bloody invasion, all right, and instead of little green men our alien adversaries turn out to be highly-infectious microscopic fuscia-tinted bio-crud.

So people (and a growing number of people-like entities) go about their business, with most folks none the wiser to the changing nature of society. Dogs and crazy people, though - they figure out right away that some of their ordinary-appearing neighbors, passers-by and census takers (census takers?) are actually more vegetable than animal.

There's the usual formulaic snowballing of general weirdness and unease, along with some seemingly pointless plot divergences - one of which involves the foreign diplomat friends of Nicole/Carol's boyfriend Ben, who is actually James Bond/Daniel Craig in the guise of a mild-mannered medical doctor. At the dinner party they attend with the various furriners, Carol engages in some impassioned repartee with a cynical, world-weary Russian (what other kind is there?) during which he makes the following straight-faced pronouncement:

"In the right situation, we're all capable of the most terrible crimes."

Huh? Where'd that come from? Is this guy channeling Dr. Strangelove? Or just Dick Cheney's introspective evil twin?

Things really begin to get ugly when Nicole/Carol desperately makes her way across the pod-person-populated city to the home of her ex-husband - now an ex-human - to retrieve their joint-custody son from his care. It's during this sequence that her ex-human ex-husband Tucker (Jeremy Northam) finally manages to assault her in the most odious of ways. On the up-side, vile goo can simply be wiped off with a Wet One, but internally the damage is done - or it will be, as soon as the gooed-up individual goes to sleep. Leading to bouts of pill popping and the chugging of liter bottles of Mountain Dew. Great marketing ploy!

Anyway, now that Nicole's been slimed, one would have to be a village idiot to french her or otherwise share bodily fluids - D'OH! - Ben, you fool!

There are the usual zombie plot elements at play, including having the real people work their way through zombie (pod folk) crowds while pretending to be zombies (pod folk). And doing only a barely-passing job at it. And of course there will be episodes where the protagonists barricade themselves in various buildings or rooms while the zombies hammer and scrape at the barricaded doors. And we know this is science fiction because the TV newsreels depict Bush and Chavez engaged in friendly conversation in Venezuela, and U.S. troops pulling out of Iraq. Crazy stuff like that.

The filmmaker (German-born Oliver Hirschbiegel, helming his first English-language feature) must have gotten a look at 28 Weeks Later, because - just as in that film - there's a deus ex machina in the form of a helicopter from Fort Detrick waiting for Carol and her son at the end of a zombie gauntlet.

While the preceding portions of the movie have been mildly entertaining (primarily due to Nicole's willowiness) and moderately creepy, the too-predictable ending is a world-class letdown. Events are tied up with a bow so finely wrought that it might have been crafted by Martha Stewart. As a capper, the film's heavy-handed moralizing message is repeated via flashback quotation in the 93rd minute of run-time. Roll credits.

CAMPAIGN SLOGAN? - "There's a war going on, and the only way we're gonna win it is in the lab." - chief medical technologist Dr. Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright)