"They're here!"

The Invasion. It's a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of my favorite movies, a movie that already got one of the best remakes out there in the 70s with Donald Sutherland and his Amazing 'Stache of Doom.

So I went in with reservations, obviously. I also, however, went in with a serious jones for Daniel Craig, so those two things may have canceled each other out.

The hotness.

First off, I also knew that it had sat on a studio shelf for a couple of years before getting released. In fact, Daniel Craig found out he was cast as James Bond during re-shoots, and then the studio sat on the movie until after Casino Royale was successful. Which is just as mercenary as everything else about the film, I think.

Actually, the movie is surprisingly good, I've got to say. It's a very effective thriller. And there are certainly plenty of problems, but since most of the specifics I'll bring up are bad, I do want to say right off that I enjoyed the 90 minutes I spent sitting in front of the movie tremendously. But on to those problems.

The pod people are a little bit too alien, for one thing -- they're too easy to tell from the humans right off the bat. Some of them are better than others, too -- Carol's secretary is a nice is-she-or-isn't-she moment, but with most of the aliens, you find yourself wondering how they get through even two or three days without everyone around them suspecting them of being either Coneheads or on quaaludes.

In addition to the many little references and in-jokes, this version also recalls the original in having its ending monkeyed around with by the studio. I don't know that for a fact, but good lord. I rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell over.

Nicole Kidman has really remarkable chemistry with the child actor they have playing her son. It's good, because she has zero chemistry with Daniel Craig, sadly. There are plenty of scenes that suggest that their relationship was probably less platonic in the original cut, and then somebody with sense got ahold of it and was like, "No." I mean, the movie sorta sells it, but really only on the amazing charisma of Daniel Craig. You believe the relationship mostly because he's lovely and you identify with her, so presto, it's lurve. It could be worse -- it's not Annikin-and-Padma bad -- but it's not good.

Jeffrey Wright, despite being saddled with selling The Deus Ex Machina What Ate Pittsburgh, is marvelous. He should be in everything. Which is good, because I've noticed lately that he kind of is.

Roger Rees should also be in everything and isn't, and that's a problem for me. But he's in this, and he gets to VO the last line, because if nothing else, Roger Rees should VO the last line of every movie. And if we can't even manage that, at the very least he should narrate my life, because if he did it would be far more interesting and cleverly written. He can do that, you see -- everything that comes out of his mouth sounds cleverly written, even when it's dreck.

Speaking of things coming out of people's mouths, I could have done without all the vomiting. Euch. And yet, while the convincing vomiting grossed me out, the unconvincing vomiting by the crowd on the train, while still kinda gross just on the strength of its volume, was the least convincing vomiting since Linda Blair's stand-in spat pea soup all over Father Karras. They may have actually used the same Dick Smith rig from The Exorcist for all the train people, actually, because you could almost see the little nozzle between their jaws, just like you can in The Exorcist (if you freeze-frame it, at least -- not that I've ever obsessed hard enough over that movie to do something so weird).

The whole concept of infectious disease being the vehicle for the pod... being... pod-iness? -- there aren't technically any pod people here, since there aren't pods anymore, but I think we can safely say that "pod people" now means more than just "dopplegangers grown in pods" -- I liked it, actually. Frankly, partly because "pod people" is such a part of our vocabulary, it seems vaguely ridiculous when you see it in the original movie, the actual plant pods growing people. (In the 70s remake it's way gross. Way gross. And thus avoids being ridiculous.) The idea of the replacement as an infection, and as something that can be spread like an infection -- the mass vaccinations are especially chilling -- this seems like a nice updating. It also solves some sticky questions from the first two versions: what happens to your old body? How fast does the new one grow? How can the new pod happen to be wherever you are? I'll never forget the fleeting moment of total silliness when Sutherland's girlfriend's old body deflates like a week-old birthday balloon. This does work better, though it also, sadly, allows for the ridiculously upbeat ending.

But even having solved some problems, there's a trifle too much goofy science going on. It's a hard balance to strike: you need to have just enough science to let people not feel stupid believing in pod people, but not so much that everyone who's taken AP Biology starts going, "But that's horseshit." They tip a little too far in that direction here, I feel.

I liked the little call-backs to previous versions, for I am a geek and geeks love to be in on the joke. Both the prior movies had a scene where someone runs in front of the protagonist's car yelling about how "they're here!" and then later in the film, the protagonist is in the same position. I loved how Veronica Cartwright (the first to be aware of the pod people in the 70s remake and -- spoiler alert -- the only survivor at the end) was also in a very similar position here. And calling the protagonist Carol Bennell -- the original love interest Becky Driscoll becomes Ben Driscoll -- very nice.

Why does this keep happening to me?

The gender swap actually works particularly well, I thought. Carol is connected to everyone in her life in ways that the male protagonists never were, and you can argue about whether that's because she's a woman, but -- well, I just think it is. Not inherently, obviously, but societally, yeah, it makes sense that she has more connections. I like it, in any case: it keeps the emotional stakes higher, I think. Clearly sticking her with a kid -- as much as I hate that as a cliche and a gender stereotype -- makes the desperation even more acute.

But I think it also introduces a dynamic with her ex-husband that appeals to the feminist in me. The girl that Tucker lives with is clearly coded as a "younger model," which kind of makes me hate him, and unfortunately that's really the only indication of what Tucker was as a husband. But once he becomes a pod person, the violence, the malevolent control that he tries to exert and the obedience he insists on extracting from Carol -- the way he deposits her at home with his mother and the children while he goes off to do Important Work just makes me itch -- is a disturbing comment on gender roles.

Or I've been reading a lot of Jezebel lately and I see the patriarchy everywhere.

Probably both, actually.

It ain't exactly "Get the hell away from her, you bitch," but it'll do.

I also like the evolution of professions. In the original, Miles is a doctor and Becky is a... girl. In the sequel, Matthew is a health inspector and the girl is... well, a girl again. But also the villain (Leonard Nimoy!) is a psychiatrist. Here, Carol is a psychiatrist, and Ben is a doctor. I think it's easy to read the foregrounding of science as authority (and the growing acceptance of psychology as more than the touchy-feely gobbledygook that Nimoy's character promotes) as antidotes against blind conviction and unthinking faith, as demonstrated by the pods.

Total tangent: I love movies shot on location, I really do. Especially when they're shot on location where I actually live. Look! It's the Cleveland Park metro station! I've had dinner in that Greek restaurant, and the city's best movie theater is right behind the camera!

I said a lot more about the problems, I know, but it is really a decent little movie with some nice scares. Nicole Kidman's actually surprisingly good, Daniel Craig is excellent, Jeremy Northam's creepy as hell.

I ought to say something about what the pod people are this time around -- Communists, new agers, they've always been something -- but honestly, I'm still trying to decide what that deeper comment here is, if there is one. I mean there's an obvious "emotions, bad and good, are what make us human" message, but that's so horrifically obvious, it would be a shame to waste an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake on it. I mean, it's one of the greatest ready-made open metaphors out there; surely we can do better. Maybe xenophobic times just make for Body Snatchers movies, simplistic though they may be in execution; maybe context is really all that counts.