The
Invasion
(2007/Warner HD-DVD/DVD Combo Format) + Invasion
Of The Body Snatchers - Collector's Edition
(1978/UA/MGM DVD Set)
Picture:
B+/C+/B- Sound: A-/B-/C+ Extras: C-/B Film: C-/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The HD-DVD has been discontinued, but is available on 4K Blu-ray and
you can read about it more at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16540/Addiction+4K+(1995/4K+Ultra+HD+Blu-ray)/Invas
The
1978 version arrived on Blu-ray and can be found at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10389/Halloween+2010+Blu-rays:+Amityvill
And
was also issued on Blu-ray in the U.K. and you can read about that
version at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12469/The+Bat+(1959/Allied+Artists/Film+Chest+DVD)/I
Now,
the original text...
There
is the best way to do a remake and the wrong way. When it comes to
Don Siegel's 1956 classic Invasion
Of The Body Snatchers,
you have a film and a book so key (like Richard Matheson's I
Am Legend)
that has several official film versions and endless imitators.
Besides the many imitators, there are three remakes and we will look
at the 4th and 2nd versions here.
One
of last years biggest bombs, The
Invasion
(2007) casts Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in what would seem to
have been a winning combination on screen in a new interpretation
going bonkers with microorganisms. They are good, there is
definitely money up on the screen, there are some great visual shots,
a bit of suspense and a few creepy moments, but this cut is
butchered, obviously shortened, badly edited and is overall tired
quickly.
Kidman
is a mom and psychiatrist who has separated from her husband (James
McAvoy) and is suddenly seeing strange things happen. The most
direct early sign is when one of her nicest patients (Veronica
Cartwright from the 2nd version and Ridley Scott's Alien)
feels her husband is not who he used to be; not the same person.
Yes, we have heard this before, but nobody in the film seems to have.
This
cut has no one talking about the previous three films or similar pop
culture, but David Kajganich's screenplay cannot overcome a sense of
deja vu on the previous remakes and offers nothing new. Andy &
Larry Wachowski (The
Matrix)
were brought in for rewrites, but that did not help. Tireder still
is the idea of the alien microbe coming back on an exploding space
shuttle (a combination of a bad idea and too similar to Species
2 to
boot) as well as an annoying series of faux HDTV news broadcasts
showing the situation as it develops and changes, whether the media
is aware or not.
If
you somehow missed the previous three version, you might be briefly
fooled that this is better than it is, but by the end, it is more
action that substance and under Joel Silver's production tends to
dump the story to be another one of his action pieces. Though Oliver
Hirschbiegel directed most of the film and is not only credited as
sole director, he is celebrated as such in the supplements, James
McTeigue from V
For Vendetta
(see the 4K and Blu-ray reviews elsewhere on this site) did more than
a few reshoots and it did not seem to make any difference. Though I
am curious to see the other versions, I doubt it would improve things
much.
Far
better is the surprisingly good 1978 first remake by Philip Kaufmann
that is the best of the remakes, cleverly picking up where the
classic leaves off and clearly remaining the most chilling of the
four. Often badly written off as a warning about new age religion
and cults, the W.D. Richter screenplay digs deeper and comes up with
a far more well-developed scenario where two health officials (Donald
Sutherland and Brooke Adams) start to discover unusual things
happening beyond their usual territory of rating restaurants.
Then
things get worse and before you know it, they are on the run, trying
to figure out who has been converted and who has not. Pacing is
excellent, the use of San Francisco is terrific and the rest of the
cast including Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Goldblum all doing some of the
best work of their career makes this one of Kaufmann's best and maybe
most underrated films.
By
comparison, with all the innovations the '78 version came up with,
the new 2007 version seems like a sincere imitator at best that just
cannot cut it and though fans will want to see it once, others will
be very disappointed. We recommend you watch the four official
versions in chronological order starting with the 1956 classic.
Both
versions here are 1.85 X 1 (the other two are in scope formats) and
MGM/Fox nearly issued the '78 version in Blu-ray at the time we
posted this review, but that version finally arrived in September
2010 and can be found at the link above. As a result, the HD-DVD
side of the 2007 version on the HD Combo disc looked the best of the
releases at the time, lensed by Director of Photography Rainer
Klausmann, best known for his amazing work on the under seen 2004
drama Downfall,
about the end of Hitler. No doubt Warner and Silver got their
money's worth here, though some shots are softer than expected from
stylizing, while the faux HD news pieces are just plain ugly. The
anamorphically enhanced low-def DVD flipside is poor in Video Black,
color range and does not do justice to what looked good on the HD
side, so much so that it does not look as good as the image from the
1978 DVD.
That
is a welcome upgrade from the lame DVD MGM issued eons ago for the
film in a basic edition that did not do the film justice. Now, you
can better appreciate Michael Chapman's amazing camerawork, clever
lighting, camera angles and some fine editing that is a textbook
example of who to cut a thriller. Can't wait to see the Blu-ray,
while the 2007 version has a Blu-ray release available.
The
lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix on the HD side of the '07 film is
dynamic, well-recorded and a pleasant surprise to the point that it
is the highlight of the disc. Surrounds are used effectively and the
mix has some character, though editing down the film seems to have
affected the soundtrack. The lossy Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mixes on
the HD side and standard Dolby 5.1 on the DVD side are weaker by
comparison. The '78 version was an early Dolby A-type analog
theatrical release, which sounded very harsh on the out of print DVD,
but sounds somewhat better here in a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
mix with Pro Logic surrounds. I still think there is room for
improvement if MGM would get the original soundmasters of the William
Richter score and upgrade this to a 5.1 mix. The character of the
sound design is actually better than the '07 version, but the
standard Dolby here does not do justice to the sound.
Extras
on the 2007 version include three short featurettes: The
Invasion: A New Story,
The
Invasion: On The Set
and The
Invasion: Snatched,
all meant to promote the film. The longer We've
Been Snatched Before: Invasion In Media History
tries to put the film in a historical context and just never works.
It sites all the other versions of the book, except the 1993 Abel
Ferrara version, Body
Snatchers,
which Warner owns and produced and is linked below. It is also
creepier than the new '07 version with an ending they seem to be
trying to censor. They cut that version down, but it actually is
beginning to have a sort of cult following, so we'll see what happens
with it.
The
'78 DVD set includes the original theatrical trailer, a fine audio
commentary track by Kaufmann and four featurettes: Re-Visitors
From Outer Space, or How I learned To Stop Worrying & Love The
Pod,
Practical
Magic: The Special Effects Pod,
The
Man Behind The Scream: The Sound Effects Pod
and The
Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod.
This is a great set of extras that do a great job covering a classic
and an underrated back catalog release. Nice that it is now
available as the '07 remake hits shelves.
Having
now turned out two versions that lost money, let's hope Warner is
through with remaking the Jack Finney classic. Paramount got a 4K
edition of the 1956 original issued we'll look at at some point,
while you can also check out the 1993 version at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14536/Batman:+Return+Of+The+Caped+Crusader+(2016
-
Nicholas Sheffo
