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Overall Rating : 6/10
Directed By : Philip Kaufman
Donald Sutherland (Don't Look Now)
Brooke Adams (The Legend of Lucy Keyes)
Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park)
Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek (TV) '73)
Supplied By : Fox Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick Blalock
Date Reviewed : August. 29, 2007
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| PLOT In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion. |
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| THE REVIEW in 1978 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a small San Francisco town is taken over by an alien race, know as "Pod People" In the film we are introduced to a young Biologist by the name of ELizabeth Driscoll, and it not long that Elizabeth finds something strangely different about her husband Geoffrey, whom starts to act with character or emotion and it becomes apparent that Geoffrey isn't the only one. Elizabeth begins to recognize an outbreak of the same behavior amongst the entire town, and as a typical story would go, no one believes her, not ever her best friend, Health Inspector, Matthew Bennell. Matthew finally comes to realization that what's happening is real, and it's some sort of Alien Invasion, in with a parasite in the form of a plant, is capable of cloning humans within life-size pods it produces. The human replicas would look and appear to be an exact clone of the person, except they are void of all emotion that the originator has. Matthew, Elizabeth and friends, Jack and Nancy Bellicec, must eventually find a way to stop the invasion, or at least get away while remaining in their human form. 1978's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, was the first remake in a sting of remakes of the 1956 film of the same name(there is now 3 remakes in total, counting 2007's INVASION). While I have not seen the 1956 version of the film, I have seen the 1993 version titled BODY SNATCHERS. To be honest, prior to receiving this DVD from FOX, I had not seen this film in it's entirety, and now that I have, I am surprised how different this version and BODY SNATCHERS are from one another - sure the concept is the same, but their execution and approach as strikingly different. I found 78's version to be more literal in the sense of seriousness, that gave off the vibe as if the film was trying to send some sort of political message out, or prove a point - call me crazy but I got that feeling. As for BODY SNATCHERS, the approach was more hip and had a teen appeal to it for "today's generation" and unlike this version didn't require a lot of thinking, it was just a fun watch. The story here is a good one, albeit slow developing... it does keep you wondering what the out come will be, and it is often times a bit bizarre(the effects are great). The only thing that hindered me a bit, that the first quarter of the film movies a little too slow, with not much action taking place, I thought the film's overall runtime may have been a little too long as well. But as I hinted to, the film's action scenes and bizarre effects are things that make it an overall good film, for whatever interest is lost with the first half, the second half of the film surely makes up for it. The cast is an ensemble cast, with a couple of big names from the time(Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy), and overall the acting is very believable, and all of the main characters are likable. The film's main focus is on Matthew(Donald Sutherland) and Elizabeth(Brooke Adams) and their close friendship, a friendship that by the end of the movie turns into love( also something to pull at the audience). I can't leave without mentioning how great Brooke Adam's looked nude back then!(which as no relevance to the movie....just a footnote :) ) In the end, I liked this INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS remake, it does indeed have it's slower less interesting moments, but towards the middle of the film, things move a lot quicker as the plot of the film begins to unfold. |
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| GORE
METER 2.5/10 Not really gory, but more of a "gross factor" that honestly. is beautiful to see... |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3/10 The score is somewhat ok, it's presence wasn't too prominent in my opinion, sometimes I hardly noticed it |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM 1978's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. is a Sci-fi film that takes it self seriously, but is at times highly exaggerated, but never to the point where the viewer wouldn't believe it. It is definitely a fun film once it gets to the purpose of it's story. I did enjoy 1993's BODY SNATCHERS a little better better however, but I cannot deny this one's overall effectiveness - this is definitely worth checking out! |
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