Shaun Duke

There are a lot of movies about alien invasions out there. We have the numerous incarnations of War of the Worlds, not to mention The Missing and even shows like Invasion (which is not related to this movie except by common theme). Sometimes the movies are hit and miss; sometimes they are brilliant. The Invasion is neither brilliant nor a tremendous miss. What it lacks for visual appeal it gains in good characterization and suspense. The commercials gave the impression this was some sort of Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, and in a lot of ways it is (except here the aliens actually take over your body rather than creating a whole new one, though it should be mentioned that the IMDB subtitle for the film is Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The result is that we don’t really see the aliens, nor are we entirely certain that they are aliens (it’s sort of explained, but really it could just be an advanced parasitic infection of sorts). Still the film benefits from having Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman as leads, bringing in solid characterization to make you care about what is going on, a factor which can become a problem in films these days with excessive amounts of explosions, CGI, and random characters who either don’t fit or fail to change in any recognizable fashion. So, without further ado, to the breakdown: Direction 3/5 I can’t say that the direction is perfect. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of annoying camera angles or visual problems that can be attributed to the direction. This is pretty standard stuff. It gets the job done and allows you to forget that someone is behind the camera calling the shots. That’s a good thing. Other than that there’s not much to say. Cast 3/5 It’s hard not to like Kidman in this film, and Craig does a lot to give this film some strength, by providing balance to Kidman’s heavy motherly role. Other cast members may be familiar to you, though likely not by name, and all of them serve to establish and excellent ensemble that don’t seem to have many problems with establishing a realistic connection. The romance between Kidman and Craig feels strained because it should be (Kidman plays a single mother dealing with a lot of issues over custody, so her desire to be protective of her son and realizing the importance of maintaining some distance comes through beautifully). I can’t complain about any of the cast because none of them managed to hurt the film. Adaptation N/A Although I am familiar with the original, I don’t really consider this a modern adaptation of the films that preceded it. It certainly has similarities, but I think the change in how the creatures take control makes it much more realistic and frightening. Writing 4/5 Since we’re dealing with an obviously cliche idea, or at least one used enough times before to be recognizable, I find that parts of the story simply fall a little short of the mark. The best thing about this movie is that it doesn’t give you the standard Body Snatchers idea. Instead of the aliens growing copies of real people, and subsequently destroying the originals, the aliens here manifest as a sort of parasitic virus of sorts. The symptoms they exhibit before fully infecting you look like any other flu infection. This is a really neat idea when you think about how easy it would be for such an infection to spread. Where the story is a little weak is in dealing with the aliens themselves. There is a lot of leading up to the big climax, but not nearly enough of the amazingly frightening reality that the aliens present. Still, the suspense provided was enough to keep me interested in what was going to happen in the end. Thankfully the end doesn’t disappoint. Visuals 3/5 There isn’t a lot in the way of CGI or anything like. Most of the visuals are simply the characters and the city. Having said that I can say that at least the visuals are crisp. Not the greatest visual work, but certainly movie quality. Nothing that will knock you off your seat, since there isn’t any CGI or anything like that. Overall I’d say the visuals simply get the job done and avoid being annoying, because what would any scifi movie be with annoying visuals? Exactly. Overall 3.25/5 To put it simply this is a good movie. Not the greatest, but definitely worth renting. It does exactly what it was made to do: entertain. If you don’t want to be entertained, don’t watch this movie. If you do, then give it a shot. If you like alien invasions and body snatcher stories, then this is another to add to your arsenal. The suspense and overall feel of the movie kept me interested from start to finish, plus there is an excellent cast. The short answer: good movie that doesn’t attempt to be anything more than it was advertised as.

Having missed this film in theaters I was forced to do the “rental” thing. I’m glad I didn’t see it in theaters. Seriously. The problem with Cloverfield isn’t that it is a bad idea, nor that it’s a cliche idea, since the whole monster attacking a major city thing has been done dozens of times before, it’s that the marketing for this made me so fascinated by the prospect of a truly illusive and downright original take on giant monster movies only to let me down when the actual film played before my eyes. I tried really hard to enjoy it as much as possible, and there are good parts within the film, but unfortunately the faults of the film simply outweigh the things that were done right. More to be said in the breakdown. Direction 1/5 What direction? I’m not kidding. That’s a very serious question. Whatever direction was given must not have been very thorough, nor very useful. Throughout most of the movie we’re subjected to Hub, or Hud, or whatever the hell that guy’s name is. Initially he wanders around being a complete moron while trying to get people to do quick “video goodbye’s” for the main character (who is apparently leaving for Japan), then attempts to get some girl to like him at the party (which he doesn’t stop doing there by the way). That last bit comes into play later for reasons that are just plain idiotic. When the sh*t hits the fan, Mr. Hubby Hud takes the camera with him and for the rest of the movie (until he dies) we get to hear his lovely idiotic commentary as the city descends into chaos. Now, on principle I have nothing wrong with having the “idiot character” or the “comic relief”, except where it’s completely unnecessary. The delivery is simply juvenile, with the character acting almost as if he has a mental deficiency when he should be acting, oh, I don’t know, scared out of his damn mind? Real people, which this movie is trying to give us, don’t act like buffoons 24/7. I really doubt anyone during 9/11 was running around and asking idiotic questions about unrelated nonsense.Having sufficiently ranted I can say that there really isn’t any direction here. The reactions are all over the place and the camera panning is impossible to follow. More on that last bit later. Cast 2/5The cast of this movie is nothing special. The only person who really inspires any sort of emotional response from me is Michael Stahl-David (who plays the main character Rob Hawkins). The rest of the cast doesn’t really do much for the film. Most of the characters spend their time crying and screaming incomprehensibly, or running around acting like a moronic buffoon who can’t even convince me for one second that he actually gives a rat’s butt about the fact that Rob’s brother gets killed by the monster. Basically, loads of disappointments. Adaptation N/AThis wasn’t adapted from anything that I am aware of. Writing 1/5Let’s see: take a cliched idea, attempt to make it new, but then revert to another cliched idea, throw in more cliches, and then never explain anything, thus leaving the audience wondering “what just happened?” Oh, and the movie ends on a cliffhanger, which means you really don’t know what happened. Essentially there is no resolution to the film. Spoilers ahead, by the way.So, basically here is the story:Rob’s friends and family throw him a going-away-party one evening in his New York apartment when a big mean monster comes into town and starts screwing things up. Somewhere in the middle of the party the movie establishes a relationship-gone-bad between two childhood friends (you know, the whole “we’ve been friends forever, let’s do it” thing). Well, Mr. Rob, or Mr. Hero, decides “oh I have to save her cause I love her” and goes across town against all better judgment, subsequently getting most, if not all, of his friends killed in the process only to die in the end of the movie along with Beth (the friend with benefits).Okay, now setting aside the numerous cliches already going on we can talk about the other problems: namely the lack of answers. Where the monster comes from is never answered, in fact, we’re not given much beyond random speculation. On top of that we’re never really clear what the whole infection thing is about, but people supposedly are turning into bizarre monsters (or so the shadows seem to show us). And in the end we don’t even know if the monster is killed. The tunnel the remaining characters are hiding in is bombed and that’s the end of the movie. So in the end we know less than we did when the movie started. It’s all a glorious mess that will apparently have a sequel to give us the answers. Visuals 1/5The greatest issue with the visuals is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is done via a hand cam, which means nothing but shaking and bobbing around for an hour and a half. This didn’t work well for Blair Witch and it certainly didn’t work well here. The biggest problem with a shaky camera is that whenever we are given the chance to get a really good look at the monster (up until the end at least) the camera shakes around so the view is impossible to focus on. I can handle this a few times. I understand why they wanted this in the film, but there just comes a point in the first 45 minutes where you really want a good look at the monster so you can really understand what exactly is so terrifying. But even in the end the view of the monster isn’t very good: it’s a long distance shot, which shows the monster in its entirety, but doesn’t give us the impression we really need. The only reason the visuals get a point here is that at least when there are views of the