The Invasion (2007)

The Plot of The Invasion: Dr Carol Bennell is a single mother looking after her young son who has been a sufferer from a brain disease. Her ex-husband Tucker is an accident investigator who is looking at a crash of the space shuttle when he becomes infected by a growth on crash debris. Others are infected and Carol becomes aware that people are changing, to become more like automatons, although the media claim that it is a flu epidemic. As time passes Carol and her friend Dr Ben Driscoll, together with scientist Dr Galeano, realises that something is taking over the people around them, and that if they go to sleep they also will be taken over, but that her son Oliver may be immune due to his previous brain infection. In a race against time Galeano works on a cure for the virus, using some of Oliver’s blood. But even Ben becomes one of the aliens, claiming that they will deliver a better earth, without wars or violence. Can Carol survive, and will a vaccine be developed in time?

Content of The Invasion: There is no sex or nudity, although at one point Carol appears in particularly revealing night attire. From then on she is confronted by particularly weird people, including her ex-husband and is pursued on foot and in her car. She is surprisingly fleet in high heels. She has to recover Oliver from her changed ex-husband and sees some of her friends become different. In the laboratory everyone looks through very high power microscopes at fragments of alien stuff.

A View of The Invasion: This film received general thumbs downs from everyone, since it was compared to previous versions, which were more spooky. My favourite is the 1978 version with Donald Sutherland. Apparently the studio were dissatisfied with the first cut and has some reshoots done, which must have include the burning Jaguar scene at the climax. But it was not that bad, and now you’re read this you can have it on while doing something else.

Nicole Kidman may be best known for havng appeared in the Kubrick epic “Eyes Wide Shut”, but other films of hers reviewed on this site include: Just Go with It and The Northman.