The invasion

Year of release : 2007

Run time : 1h39m

Genre : Horror / Sci Fi

Cast : Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeffrey Wright, Jeremy Northam

The movie is a modern adaptation of the 1955 novel "The body snatchers" by Jack Finney.

A space ship crashes on earth, and CDC investigator, Tucker Kaufman, on the site of the crash, is shown a piece of the shuttle with spores attached to it. He touches it, and it cuts him. That very night, while he sleeps, he looks like something otherwordly, and instead of being dead, he just seems, emotionless.

His ex wife, Carol, who is a psychiatrist, notices her patients start complaining about their spouses not acting like themselves.

On Halloween, she goes trick or treating with her son, and another mom, with her son. While knocking on a door, the dog barks at one of the kids, and when the owner opens the door, the dog jumps him. The kid is emotionless.

Later that night, while at home, the kids play while the bitten one is hanging by himself. Carol's son finds a patch of skin, which she takes to her friend, who is a doctor, to analyze.

After 4 years out of their son's life, Tucker wants back in, and Carol takes her son, who started having nightmares again, after hearing his father wants to see him, to his place. On their way there, a woman jumps in front of their car, asking for help. She is ran over by someone from the other lane, who doesn't show any emotion. When offering to give a statement because she saw the accident, the police officer on the scene tells her in an emotionless tone he took her plate number!

After getting home after a party, at a very late hour, a man knocks on her door, claiming to be a census worker! He is trying to get her to open the door, trying to break in, and keeps on opening his mouth, as if to throw something out.

Soon, most people are taken over, and the normal people are a minority, hunted down by these clones.

I personally enjoyed the movie, it kept me on my seat, caring for the characters. In this version, the aliens take over the host like a parasite, they don't replace it. They release spores, through the mouth,like vomit, which they spit in the food or drinks, to infect others. After, they just spit or vomit on people to infect them. In order for it to take effect, the infected host must go to sleep.

After Carol is being held down by her ex husband and he "vomits" on her face, she struggles to stay awake,or she'll change.

Her friend, the good doctor, who also wants to be with her, but she's afraid if it's not gonna work, she'll lose a good friend, is trying to find a cure, with another colleague, and they find out the immune ones, like Carol's son, are the key to stop the aliens.

This movie has a happy ending, as the "invasion" is treated like a flu, and after developing a va((ine, everybody comes back to normal.

The acting was good,everyone gave good performances, as they had to act emotionless once they were turned. Nicole Kidman was the best as she had to act scared, cry and be emotionless.

The soundtrack was good.

The visual effects were good.

The movie was in the making since 2004, intended to be a remake of the 1956 movie, "Invasion of the body snatchers".

The studio wasn't happy with the original cut of the movie, so they hired the Wachowsky brothers (the creators / directors of The Matrix). As I was watching the movie, there's a scene in which a lot of people jump the car Nicole Kidman is in with her son, I remember thinking it looks like The Matrix, like the drone people and the army of agent Smiths! That was one of the re-shoots, in which apparently Nicole broke a few ribs!

The movie was a box office flop, as it grossed 40.2 million dollars against a budget of 80 million.

Nicole Kidman was allegedly paid 17 million dollars for her role.

The movie received negative reviews, Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a C!

You can watch the full movie, here, for free :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9m52v0

Rating : Worth a watch !