Chris Knipp
08-20-2007, 04:33 PM
Oliver Hirschbiegel: The Invasion (2007)
Too many cooks: a classic case
Review by Chris Knipp
This updating of Jack Finney's Body Snatchers story, directed (according to the credits anyway) by Oliver Hirschbiegel of the gripping last-days-of-Hitler film The Downfall, clumsily interweaves a low-keyed mood piece with some noisy car chases and a helicopter rescue in which Nicole Kidman proves to be a mean stunt racing driver. She also on several occasions kills some people in cold blood—providing rare moments of naughty fun for an audience starved for a little violence relevant to the original plot. There isn't a lot else happening on screen, despite the fact that masses of Americans are being "turned" by an alien virus into soberly dressed, tidy zombies whose aim this time, of all things, is to create a more orderly, peaceful world. The irony—though clearly underdeveloped—is that this positive transformation is not what people want. "They," the infected ones, are trapping people, infecting them, and taking away their personalities. They sneeze on them and the virus takes effect during their REM sleep. There's a new twist somewhere here about how visions of a better world get compromised in the execution, but it tends to become lost in the botched result that is The Invasion.
There are no monsters or gooey ectoplasm here, just little sheaths of clear tissue and some people whose faces glaze over—all of which, from the sci-fi action-movie standpoint, comes off as pretty lame. Meanwhile the creepy psychological elements—and the ideas about various social and political issue—aren't allowed to develop fully either.
This new scaling down of the old story appears to have all the earmarks of a low budget piece except a low budget. With big crowd scenes and the likes of Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman signed on, it must have cost a few bucks. Actually, Craig did this before he got the 007 franchise, which explains a lot. In any case the technical package reads as mediocre. Lacking is the spectacular excitement of the Alien movies or earlier Body Snatchers ones—or the military ironies and onrush of events of the recent 28 Weeks Later, which like this (which is set in DC), is full of political references. But in the case of 28 Weeks the political satire is integrated into the action in ways that are far more cinematic and satirically effective.
Apparently what happened to The Invasion was too many surgeries by opposing doctors. Hirschbiegel had a low-keyed horror movie going on. We feel the chilling menace in the early sequences. Then because of some poor test audience responses the producers called on the Wachowski brothers to inject some more violence and noise into the piece. This was when uncredited sub-director James McTeigue came along. The disconnect is super-evident. Implausibility would have perhaps been inevitable, but the clumsy patchwork destroys the mood and resolves everything with utterly conventional rescues and a too-easy off-scene medical solution that restores everything to normal. Oliver's little friend Gene (Eric Benjamin) who turned into a nasty little monster, is suddenly "cured" and, having lost his parents, now lives with them. That's unintentionally creepy, and a sign of how poorly structured the screenplay wound up being with too many cooks.
The tie-in between the alien virus and the leads is simply made. Carol Bennell (Kidman) is a psychiatrist. People are certainly beginning to act strangely and as a behavior professional she's qualified to note that. Those who've "turned" don't sweat or show emotion. Ms. Kidman says, "My patient's husband was infected by an alien virus and all I did was prescribe an anti-psychotic drug. What an idiot I am!" Yes, but how was she to know? Her ex-husband Tucker (Jeremy Northam) has "turned," and when Carol suspects this, Tucker's sudden desire to have their little boy Oliver (Jackson Bond) spend time with him after a two-year absence is deeply sinister. (This movie might not be good for small children whose parents have separate households.) Carol's boyfriend—wait, make that "best friend"—Ben (Craig), is a doctor, who luckily knows Dr. Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright, a brilliant actor completely wasted here), an ace virus scientist.
The creepy menace of early scenes, some of which are truly disturbing, is thrown away with a too-easy resolution when vaguely referenced government efforts come together, the invasion is eradicated (off screen) and little Oliver is saved from his creepy dad. Big cut-in microscope images of pulsating test-tube viruses that appear rather arbitrarily every now and again are emblematic of the film's patchwork editing process.
A movie like The Invasion, which takes an old zombie/alien theme and injects it with some political references, incidentally makes one realize why Phillip K. Dick's writing is so often adapted to the screen: Dick's books and stories are packed with original and provocative ideas. The thinking behind The Invasion is sloppy and skimpy. It seems to be talking primarily about how chilling and oppressive do-gooders can be. This could be seen as a dark vision of how projects to make the world better may be compromised by authoritarianism. Jeffrey Wright is in the lab finding a cure, and as Americans get their humanity back, violence starts up again. The way to stay human is to keep the world a mess. The irony is heavy handed. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq comes at us from TV screens; then as those infected with the alien virus begin to take over, there is peace. The idea of a conflict between wanting to change for the better and clinging to our old animal instincts is potentially an interesting one. Dick would have woven something fascinating out of it. But it's not helped in this movie by throwing in references to other current stuff like distrust of government, fear of a medicine-resistant pandemic, and squabbling with other ex-bloc nations in the Russian embassy. And none of these themes is well integrated into the action--nor do the events themselves seem menacing or exciting enough to outweigh the skimpiness of the ideas.
This is a clear example of what happens when a studio tests a movie on an audience, worries that it's too arty or subtle, and calls in a team of fixers. The result is a hack job that has good moments, but ends by not quite pleasing any audience.
Too many cooks: a classic case
Review by Chris Knipp
This updating of Jack Finney's Body Snatchers story, directed (according to the credits anyway) by Oliver Hirschbiegel of the gripping last-days-of-Hitler film The Downfall, clumsily interweaves a low-keyed mood piece with some noisy car chases and a helicopter rescue in which Nicole Kidman proves to be a mean stunt racing driver. She also on several occasions kills some people in cold blood—providing rare moments of naughty fun for an audience starved for a little violence relevant to the original plot. There isn't a lot else happening on screen, despite the fact that masses of Americans are being "turned" by an alien virus into soberly dressed, tidy zombies whose aim this time, of all things, is to create a more orderly, peaceful world. The irony—though clearly underdeveloped—is that this positive transformation is not what people want. "They," the infected ones, are trapping people, infecting them, and taking away their personalities. They sneeze on them and the virus takes effect during their REM sleep. There's a new twist somewhere here about how visions of a better world get compromised in the execution, but it tends to become lost in the botched result that is The Invasion.
There are no monsters or gooey ectoplasm here, just little sheaths of clear tissue and some people whose faces glaze over—all of which, from the sci-fi action-movie standpoint, comes off as pretty lame. Meanwhile the creepy psychological elements—and the ideas about various social and political issue—aren't allowed to develop fully either.
This new scaling down of the old story appears to have all the earmarks of a low budget piece except a low budget. With big crowd scenes and the likes of Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman signed on, it must have cost a few bucks. Actually, Craig did this before he got the 007 franchise, which explains a lot. In any case the technical package reads as mediocre. Lacking is the spectacular excitement of the Alien movies or earlier Body Snatchers ones—or the military ironies and onrush of events of the recent 28 Weeks Later, which like this (which is set in DC), is full of political references. But in the case of 28 Weeks the political satire is integrated into the action in ways that are far more cinematic and satirically effective.
Apparently what happened to The Invasion was too many surgeries by opposing doctors. Hirschbiegel had a low-keyed horror movie going on. We feel the chilling menace in the early sequences. Then because of some poor test audience responses the producers called on the Wachowski brothers to inject some more violence and noise into the piece. This was when uncredited sub-director James McTeigue came along. The disconnect is super-evident. Implausibility would have perhaps been inevitable, but the clumsy patchwork destroys the mood and resolves everything with utterly conventional rescues and a too-easy off-scene medical solution that restores everything to normal. Oliver's little friend Gene (Eric Benjamin) who turned into a nasty little monster, is suddenly "cured" and, having lost his parents, now lives with them. That's unintentionally creepy, and a sign of how poorly structured the screenplay wound up being with too many cooks.
The tie-in between the alien virus and the leads is simply made. Carol Bennell (Kidman) is a psychiatrist. People are certainly beginning to act strangely and as a behavior professional she's qualified to note that. Those who've "turned" don't sweat or show emotion. Ms. Kidman says, "My patient's husband was infected by an alien virus and all I did was prescribe an anti-psychotic drug. What an idiot I am!" Yes, but how was she to know? Her ex-husband Tucker (Jeremy Northam) has "turned," and when Carol suspects this, Tucker's sudden desire to have their little boy Oliver (Jackson Bond) spend time with him after a two-year absence is deeply sinister. (This movie might not be good for small children whose parents have separate households.) Carol's boyfriend—wait, make that "best friend"—Ben (Craig), is a doctor, who luckily knows Dr. Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright, a brilliant actor completely wasted here), an ace virus scientist.
The creepy menace of early scenes, some of which are truly disturbing, is thrown away with a too-easy resolution when vaguely referenced government efforts come together, the invasion is eradicated (off screen) and little Oliver is saved from his creepy dad. Big cut-in microscope images of pulsating test-tube viruses that appear rather arbitrarily every now and again are emblematic of the film's patchwork editing process.
A movie like The Invasion, which takes an old zombie/alien theme and injects it with some political references, incidentally makes one realize why Phillip K. Dick's writing is so often adapted to the screen: Dick's books and stories are packed with original and provocative ideas. The thinking behind The Invasion is sloppy and skimpy. It seems to be talking primarily about how chilling and oppressive do-gooders can be. This could be seen as a dark vision of how projects to make the world better may be compromised by authoritarianism. Jeffrey Wright is in the lab finding a cure, and as Americans get their humanity back, violence starts up again. The way to stay human is to keep the world a mess. The irony is heavy handed. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq comes at us from TV screens; then as those infected with the alien virus begin to take over, there is peace. The idea of a conflict between wanting to change for the better and clinging to our old animal instincts is potentially an interesting one. Dick would have woven something fascinating out of it. But it's not helped in this movie by throwing in references to other current stuff like distrust of government, fear of a medicine-resistant pandemic, and squabbling with other ex-bloc nations in the Russian embassy. And none of these themes is well integrated into the action--nor do the events themselves seem menacing or exciting enough to outweigh the skimpiness of the ideas.
This is a clear example of what happens when a studio tests a movie on an audience, worries that it's too arty or subtle, and calls in a team of fixers. The result is a hack job that has good moments, but ends by not quite pleasing any audience.