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ENTERTAINMENT THE INVASION August 18, 2007 I'm pretty sure Nicole Kidman was bodysnatched long before she signed on for The Invasion. Not sure exactly when, but that woman on the screen sounded like Nicole Kidman, acted like Nicole Kidman, but she doesn't really look like Nicole Kidman anymore. With her pursed lips, saucer eyes, ghostly complexion, and lifted breasts with headlights always on, the woman on the screen in The Invasion doesn't resemble the original Nicole Kidman as much as a Real Doll of Nicole Kidman. One thing that hasn't changed for Nicole Kidman, pre or post bodysnatching, is her penchant for signing on for bad, bad movies. The Invasion sucks, man. It just plain sucks. A space shuttle crash scatters debris contaminated with an alien virus across the United States from Dallas to Washington, DC. The Center for Disease Control is on it, though, and they're so sharp that their number one scientician Jeremy Northam gladly accepts a piece of contaminated debris from a little girl and turns into an alien. Soon, everyone's an alien. Nicole Kidman plays Dr. Chase Meridian, a psychiatrist who used to be married to Northam. It just so happens their annoying son is immune to the alien virus. With the help of Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright, having themselves a fun little Casino Royale reunion, Kidman has save her son from Northam and get to him to the U.S. military, who are working to eradicate the virus. The characters speak to each other purely in exposition. Kidman: "I don't get [Jeremy Northam]. After we divorced, he never asked for custody but now all of a sudden he wants to see my son?" What the fuck? Only in really lousy movies and in pro wrestling do people go out of their way to tell each other things they already know. It's like they're aware there's a third party observing them or something. Jeffrey Wright's sole purpose in the movie is to deliver the scientific mumbo jumbo exposition. Meanwhile, the filmmakers are terribly concerned that the audience can't follow the by-the-numbers plot and the "big ideas" of the movie. So to help us dumbasses out, they liberally use flashbacks, callbacks, voiceovers, and flashbacks with voiceovers to hammer home the plot points the audience is already way ahead of. The bodysnatched humans stand up straight, stare straight ahead, and show no emotion. Basically, they're Vulcans, but without the pointy ears or hand signals. They have an awesome method to bodysnatch humans too: they puke on you and then you go to sleep, and you wake up a more boring version of yourself with excellent posture. Northam pukes on Kidman and she spends the last act of the movie on the run with her son, desperately trying to stay awake by chugging Mountain Dew in a CVS and looking for the good uppers in the pharmacy while waiting for James Bond to show up and save her. Meanwhile, Bond must have been out paying poker and drinking martinis shaken with alien vomit. When 007 finally arrives he's not quite himself so Kidman is on her own. It's pretty amusing to see James Bond totally blow it and fail to save the day. Luckily for Kidman, Felix Leiter kept his head on straight and came through in the end. Meanwhile, the bodysnatched humans can't make up their fucking minds on what their deal is. They give speeches about how a world with them in charge will have no war, no violence. But if you don't turn alien like they want you to, they'll turn into a stampede of foaming homicidal jackals and try to kill you. Really piss off the aliens and they'll throw a Molotov cocktail at you! The aliens have learned a lot from humans and their Grand Theft Auto video games. - John Orquiola |
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