On a free evening at GenCon last weekend, I went to see The Invasion, the latest re-make/re-imagining of the old Body Snatchers movies. If you haven't seen it yet (and judging by the box office figures from last weekend, odds are you haven't), don't.I wouldn't quite say outright that this was a "bad" movie. But it was not a good one, and in very disappointing ways. On paper, all the pieces seemed to be there. The main character had highly personal stakes. The story was structured in such a way that characterization did matter and wasn't superficial. The movie had many of the sort of beats that one expects a suspense movie ought to have. There were lots of ominous closeups, eerie mugs for the camera, and heightened musical cues.
And yet, the whole was far, far less than the sum of the parts. Bottom line -- despite doing so much right in principle, the movie was never actually scary. Not once. And then...
SPOILER WARNING. Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know significant plot points.
...there's the matter of the ending. They gave this movie a happy ending: they cured the disease. And not just in a "and no one fell victim ever again" way, but in an actual "they reversed the disease in everyone who already caught it" way! Unbelieveable! I mean, I'm not saying that screeching, pointing straight-at-camera Donald Sutherland is the only way to end a Body Snatcher movie, but this was just not right.
I suppose for the working pieces this movie would seem to have on paper, I'll give it a D. But the bottom line is, it's not worth your time, regardless.
1 comment:
They asked me if I wanted to go, and I said, "Nah, I've seen that movie." I got to play Notre Dame and had a much better time.
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