The Invasion (2007)

As a Washington, D.C. psychiatrist unearths the origin of an alien epidemic, she also discovers her son might be the only way it can be stopped.

Directors:

Oliver Hirschbiegel, James McTeigue (uncredited)

Writers:

David Kajganich (screenplay), Jack Finney (novel)

Stars:

Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Nicole Kidman	...	Carol Bennell
Daniel Craig	...	Ben Driscoll
Jeremy Northam	...	Tucker Kaufman
Jackson Bond	...	Oliver
Jeffrey Wright	...	Dr. Stephen Galeano
Veronica Cartwright	...	Wendy Lenk
Josef Sommer	...	Dr. Henryk Belicec
Celia Weston	...	Ludmilla Belicec
Roger Rees	...	Yorish
Eric Benjamin	...	Gene
Susan Floyd	...	Pam
Stephanie Berry	...	Carly
Alexis Raben	...	Belicec's Aide
Adam LeFevre	...	Richard Lenk
Joanna Merlin	...	Joan Kaufman

Storyline

While returning to Earth, the space shuttle explodes and the fragments bring an alien virus that recodes the human DNA. In Washington, the psychiatrist Carol Bennell observes the modification of the behavior of one of her clients first, then in her former husband and finally in the population in general. Together with her friend Dr. Ben Driscoll the researcher Dr. Stephen Galeano, they discover that the extraterrestrial epidemic affects human beings while sleeping and that her son Ollie, who had chickenpox when he was a baby, is immune to the disease and may save mankind from the outbreak.

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Plot Keywords:

psychiatrist | emotionlessness | alien invasion | alien | alien organism | 

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Taglines:

Don't Sleep. Don't Go Home. I'll Find You. - Mom

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Genres:

Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and terror

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros. [United States]

Country:

USA Australia

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

17 August 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Filming Locations:

Union Station/Columbus Circle, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$80,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,951,409, 19 August 2007, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$15,071,514, 7 October 2007

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While filming at the Chilean Embassy in Washington, D.C., Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig were to drive a white SUV to the entrance, stop the car, and allow valets to park it. Kidman forgot to place the SUV in park, and as she got out, it began to roll down the hill. Craig swooped in from the passenger side and dove at the SUV, hitting the parking brake, and stopping the disaster from proceeding. This happened during heavy rain effects.

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Goofs

When Carol is in the pharmacy and finally falls asleep, she drops the large bottle of soda she's holding, which spills all over the floor next to her. When her son finds her and injects her with the epinephrine, and they stand up together, the spilled soda and the bottle are no longer present.

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Quotes

[first lines]
News Announcer: [off-screen] Tragic news tonight as the space shuttle "Patriot" explodes during an unscheduled landing attempt.

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Connections

Referenced in Discussing the Pod (2013)

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Soundtracks

So Through
Written by Baby Jaymes and Jamie Hawkins
Performed by Naté
Courtesy of Ghetto Retro Entertainment

User Reviews

I Kept an Open Mind

You hafta' go into every movie with an open mind if you're going to give it a fair assessment, right? Well, I did exactly that with "The Invasion". Despite all the heavy and (quite) ugly criticism this movie received, it had a fair cast and it isn't too often that Nicole Kidman is in something completely awful. Let it be known, as well, that I am a big fan of both the original and the 1978 versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". It is reasonable to speculate that fans of either of those two films will be disappointed with this latest stab at the "body snatcher" storyline.

However, I asked myself, is the point to compare this film against its predecessors or should I evaluate this film on its own merits alone? I decided the latter was the right course and with this in mind, I watched "The Invasion".

The film opens with a very frantic Carol Bennell (played by Nicole Kidman) rummaging through the shelves of a pharmacy. She is searching for sleep suppressants. We are then taken back in a recent past where a space shuttle crash lands into the countryside. The shuttle's wreckage has brought back something with it. From the moment that Bennell's ex-husband (played Jeremy Northam) pricks his fingers on a foreign organism, life becomes a serious drag for the (evidently, terrible) human species. Bennell, who is a psychiatrist, doesn't get it at first when one of her patients (played by Veronica Cartwright who also starred in the 1978 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers) irately claims her husband isn't her husband. But it doesn't take long before Bennell figured out that all is not right in Everytown, USA.

This film was not awful. This was, by no means, the worst of the "snatchers" make-overs. 1993's "Body Snatchers" is my nominee for that award. There were some moments in this film that worked well such as a brief, but tense scene when Bennell and her son (played by Jackson Bond) are unsure whether the other is... them. I also liked the "attempt" at a different approach to the body snatching "method". All in all, for me what kept me watching was Kidman. No, not just because she's a super-hottie (although it never hurts.) She adeptly became Bennell and breathed life into her character. I actually thought this was one of her better performances.

This could have been an excellent film, but as is all too often the case these days, character development was not a priority. Beyond Kidman as Bennell, character development was non-existent. How people are being snatched, also, is never adequately, not even remotely, explained. Wherein the other snatcher films, while the victim sleeps their body rotted away and their alien replacement is created within a giant pea-pod, in "The Invasion" the process is never identified. This makes for a very weak ending. Truly, with today's SFX, this could have been an extraordinary "revelation". What was most disappointing was the attempt at social and political commentary. Good grief! I cannot think of a more articulate adjective then just plain...lame.