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[Mr. Mondo]

‘The Invasion… (…Of The Body Snatchers)’

Last night I went to see the new film that stars Nicole Kidman called ‘The Invasion’ and even though the film has had some average reviews in the press, I though it was good. I liked it as it had just the right amount of ‘gore’ for me and was not too full of over-elaborate science fiction terms. I thought that the film kept up a good pace throughout and did not become boring, even though at points it seemed slightly ‘over-edited’.

I think the film was directed by the person who did ‘Downfall’ and so I was wondering if a longer ‘art-house’ film was submitted by him to test screening and then re-cut by somebody else to make it go much faster. I think the film ‘American History X’ also had similar problems between the vision of the director and what the studio wanted, so maybe this is what happened here as well.

I have not seen any of the other of the ‘Body Snatcher’ films, so I cannot to compare this film with them, though I am under the impression that some of these will be regarded as ‘Sci-Fi’ classics.

Even though ‘The Invasion’ has some good points at the end, I am uncertain to whether the point of the film was to make other social observations as a masked ‘satire’ or to be just the thrill-ride that it is. I believe that the first version of ‘Invasion of Body Snatchers’ was an analogy for the effect of communist thinking on the American way, and if a similar point is trying to be made about religion or politics I think it misses the mark.

I will give this film about 3.5 out of 5.