Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Screenplay:
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Jeffrey Wright, Earl Jones
Country: US
Running Time: 99m
Year: 2007
Remakes aren’t always a bad thing, but Invasion is dreadful. Weirdly, very well made with a superb cast and yet it quite simply fails, even to be a film, by any stretch of the description.
It’s the fourth direct interpretation of the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. The story has also been a considerable inspiration for many more; both versions of The Thing, Dawn of the Dead, etc. Invasion tries to retool the plot slightly as a contagion. Watching it again post-COVID pandemic gives it a sense of irony the film itself could never hope to achieve on its own.
A story about humans being taken over by pod people at least is ironic, when the film is a hollow husk that utterly fails to grasp the emotional core of the original versions. The kindest thing to say about Invasion is it appears to be a film lost in the edit. Nothing flows, there’s a complete absence of narrative and some scenes play like a trailer. It doesn’t get its act together until the finale, with a seriously cool concept of a car chase, but it’s far too little, far too late.
Trapped in this mess is a glossy, scaled up production that could have worked. The cast are in place to deliver it. Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig do very well with what they’re given, which is the square root of sod all given that, like everything else in the film, the dialogue stutters. It’s a shopping list of a script with no sense of narrative. Again though, maybe it just collapsed in the edit suite; their charisma makes it more watchable than it deserves.
I can’t even recommend Invasion as a so-bad-it’s-fun watch; it’s just a collection of uninspired fluff. At least it moves quickly.
VIDEO
This was a big budget production and so, it might be a mess, but it’s a very handsome mess. The cinematography is perfectly fine and the UHD transfer is excellent. There was an opportunity here to reimagine the original versions as a glossier, brighter production. What if Christopher Nolan did zombies? It could be that good, so it is a fine looking film and responds awfully well to a 4K upgrade. Detail and skin-tone are spot on. Pod people effects are great (if only the film would linger on the horror aspect so they could be appreciated more), ably withstanding increased scrutiny.
EXTRA FEATURES
The extra features are more interesting than the film. One video essay ably discusses the history of all the better versions you could watch instead. Another posits the film, and other infection movies of the era, as a precursor to the real pandemic. This is gilding the lily somewhat in Invasion’s case, but again, an insight into the genre that’s worth seeing.
- 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- Original lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary by film critics Andrea Subisati and Alexandra West, co-hosts of The Faculty of Horror podcast
- Body Snatchers and Beyond, a new visual essay by film scholar Alexandra Heller Nicholas
- That Bug That’s Going Around, a new visual essay exploring The Invasion as pandemic prophecy by film scholar Josh Nelson
- We’ve Been Snatched Before, an archival featurette from 2007
- The Invasion: A New Story, an archival featurette from 2007
- The Invasion: On the Set, an archival featurette from 2007
- The Invasion: Snatched, an archival featurette from 2007
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critics William Bibbiani and Sally Christie
- Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket
- Double-sided fold out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket
