We open in the middle of the drama with psychiatrist Nicole eating a load of pills and drinking some Mountain Dew - we’ve all been there. We flashback to the space shuttle ‘Patriot’ blowing up on re-entry. The debris left has a bacterial residue on it and Kidman’s ex-husband Jeremy Northam gets cut by a piece when handed it by a pesky kid. His new wife, who used to be married to Axe off ‘Billions’ is a right cow when he complains of feeling unwell and rightly never seen again in the rest of the film. Northam has a bad night and is soon a full on snotty husk.
Meanwhile, Kidman’s kid is out for Halloween and, after her son’s friend gets bitten by a dog, she finds what looks like a bit of skin in his candy bag - I used to just get nuts and a tangerine. She takes this to her friend (but he’d like to be more) Daniel Craig who sends it on to virologist Jeffrey Wright who has some immediate computer graphics and techno babble set up to reveal that this pathogen is taking over people and to explain the plot for slow people.
It was probably lost in the re-edit but the diagnosis came with indecent haste as does the vaccine. I suppose we are all experts in viruses now, not so much in 2007! They also come up with some advice which was basically just plot points for us to remember, such as you can’t go to sleep and you can’t display emotions, lest the infected sniff you out.
Jeffrey has a secure lab set up but Kidman can’t leave her precocious kid behind as he may be immune to the virus and hold the key to a cure. That, and he’s so darn cute. Craig, in full puppy dog mode follows her about and soon they are back in the pharmacy where we started the film. Can our heroes avoid the infection and will the world be cured? And what will happen in the film?
This was a total clunker, but I did stay until the end and it was unintentionally funny in places. The film is yet another take on ‘The Bodysnatchers’ with the allegory switched from McCarthyism to our generally switched off and ‘don’t care’ society. It was done with a leaden hand with all the infected standing and staring whilst our heroes tried to look flat and uninteresting - job done! In places it was a lot like the far better ‘The World’s End’ but not as funny or engaging.
It started off being a bit creepy,but soon descended into farce as hordes of infected were around every corner with he ambition of puking into your mouth. The ending and the solution was so pat and unconvincing that it put me in mind of another Kidman clunker ‘The Stepford Wives’ where everything was sorted, literally at he push of a button.
Kidman did OK with limited material in a role that basically just saw her running around a lot. Daniel Craig, in his last role before becoming James Bond, was terrible in a nothing part. He has a half mullet, half feather cut haircut and basically just goo-goo eyes Kidman throughout. It was funny when he ‘turned’ as there was no discernible difference.
The massive edits and reshoots were obvious with big leaps in the plot and internal logic appearing without comment. It went from ‘Oh I may have the flu’ to the city being overrun. It was possibly not as bad as I anticipated but it was still pretty bad. In a world full of contagion and indeed body snatching films this is one invasion that’s easy to resist.
THE Tag Line : Evade the Invasion - 52%
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