Watching The Invasion as a whole it’s hard to come away thinking “Wow, that was awful,” because it wasn’t. But if you slow the process down and take it thought by thought, frame by frame, it’s also impossible to say “Wow, that was solid.” Again, because it wasn’t. This was most likely due to all the re-shoots and re-writes behind a film that was probably not worth the hassle.
Nicole Kidman is our heroine and the poster for the movie alone gives quite a bit away. I guess the title gives plenty away too. It all kicks off with an Alien spore invading the Earth; humans start becoming infected. Daniel Craig is the friend/scientist guy, helpful if you need a character to both provide support and break down the technical jargon. Weird stuff starts shaking down all around Kidman and her kid due to the pending alien takeover of the world and it’s a fight for survival. Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty much the gist of it.
The Invasion probably works as a concept and I bet the initial meetings on this project were rock solid. But after the movie starts, and it’s a little boring, and it’s a little PG-13… well, that’s when the concept starts failing. They do as well as they can given the limitations they were dealing with but it never really sticks out as scary, or interesting… or anything really. I’ve pretty much forgotten it already and in two weeks I’ll just have a vague recollection of how pale Nicole Kidman is and how little I was entertained by the film.
After that nasty business it’s a little odd to say what I liked here but it’s only fair. Daniel Craig does good work as per normal. I doubt we’ll see him in many roles like this over the next decade, he’s now fully Bonded, so check this out if you want to see a different side of him. Perhaps you run the Daniel Craig fansite or something to that effect. The kid here, Jackson Bond (hey, ironic last name!), is also really good. It seems as though they aren’t making bad child actors these days. I think the public reaction storyline is done well, somewhat authentic, and there are moments in The Invasion that are just the tiniest bit suspenseful. Some of the visual style is decent too, conveying a sense of insomnia to the audience and such.
But really I can’t recommend this with a clear conscience. It’s just not good enough. If you’re a huge movie fan you’ve seen this all before and even if you’re not you’ll most likely just come away disappointed that it wasn’t more entertaining. The best way to fix this would have been to interrupt those meetings many years ago with a simple, “Hmmm… maybe this just looks good on paper.”
