Based on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," the cleverly titled "The Invasion" is sparked by an opening that will have you glued to your seat and unconsciously mouthing, "Wow." The great, terrifying opening sequence turns out to be something of a flash-forward, since the true opening documents a shuttle explosion that leaves a trail of debris 200 miles wide from Washington, D.C., to Dallas. There's an immediate fear that the debris could contaminate the nearby population, and that fear is realized when a strange spore is found within the crash area.
Quickly, a government scientist (Jeremy Northam) investigates some of the victims and some of the areas that have been damaged, and he immediately begins acting stranger than Crispin Glover on Quaaludes. Somehow, he has procured a super-hot girlfriend, and then we learn that his ex-wife is D.C. psychiatrist Nicole Kidman, who parades around the movie in lingerie breakfast wear and a pushup bra, so let's just say this guy is doing something right. Kidman's colleague/love interest is the dude who plays James Bond, and the two team up to start investigating some strange organic material that shows up on her son's Halloween candy. I think you can see where this is going.
The camera shadows Kidman (Carol Bennell) to show her everyday routine, which we suspect (rightly) is about to be broken with some well-placed anything-but-normalcy. As the day progresses, we begin to see signs that people are starting to experience side effects from being affected by this spore, punctuated by a highly disturbing scene where we notice people throwing up in tea at a convention and serving it to the unaffected. The contamination is alien in nature, and results in the infected basically walking around in a dream state, feeling and experiencing nothingness.
The question quickly becomes, "Who can you trust?" The affected are embarking on finding and infecting those who have thus far avoided contact with the spores, so there is a pocket of the population who has to try to pretend to be the zombie-like, eyes-forward products of the infection. The terror is only increased by the ease of transmitting disease, which is scary for a lot of reasons in our current political climate. What is diagnosed as the flu quickly escalates once the victim falls asleep, and the result is a cross between "Stepford Wives" and "A.I."
After a quick Google search shows Bennell that many people are describing situations in which "my son is not my son" or "my wife is not my wife," she realizes that strange things are afoot at the Circle K. When her infected ex-husband insists on having their son visit him, she panics when she comes in contact with an infected person and sees the results. Upon trying to rescue her son, her ex-husband vomits on her (literally and figuratively), giving her the infection, which won't kick in completely until she falls asleep. Her mantra then becomes, "Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep."
As she heads through downtown D.C. attempting to pose as an infected person and avoiding eye contact, she comes across a scene where people are jumping off a roof, similar to "The Happening." Director Oliver Hirschbiegel (yes, that's his last name) then begins to interweave future scenes and events with the present and past scenes and events with the present, which is a neat tactic when done correctly and somewhat confusing when it's not. In this case, it is handled well by Hirschbiegel, setting up some impending doom and tension.
In attempting to kidnap her son from the home of his best friend, a creepy little fucker named Gene who is a disturbing combination of Short Round and Chuck Manson, there is a tremendously tense stare-off between the mother and the son, in which both don't want to give away the fact that they're not infected yet. It turns out that the son is immune to the infection due to a childhood disease, leading Bennell's scientist friends to embark on trying to identify a cure. Mother and son are eventually discovered to be pretending, leading to a terrific chase scene that includes a scary stop at a convenience store that involves the Mom having to shoot James Bond and the son plunging a syringe into his mom's heart to wake her up and ends in a rooftop helicopter rescue.
Eventually, a cure is found and disseminated, and the media asks one of the scientists whether society is going back to normal. "Pick up a newspaper," he says with a sigh. "For better or worse, we're human again." Charmingly, it is revealed that James Bond survived the shooting and was cured, and is now rocking breakfast at the therapist's house. Bennell has apparently gotten custody of Gene to go with her son, and she constantly recalls the words of a colleague: "In the right situation, we're all capable of terrible crimes."
Bolstered by a stellar trailer (below), "The Invasion" turns out to be a worthy remake of a classic, marked by a fitting soundtrack that highlights the many memorably intense scenes. It's a good length at 93 minutes, though the ending is a little simplistic and the real reasons behind the contamination and infection are unexamined. Still, if you're looking for an easy watch and some hair-raising (*add your own Kidman/pushup bra joke here*) moments, this is one that's worth checking out.
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