Here it is folks, the granddaddy of them all. This is the definitive "The aliens are already among us" movie. In fact, unless I miss my guess this started the whole sub-genre.
Well, it’s the remake of the movie that started the whole sub-genre, anyway.
I originally planed to review both of them. However I live in the middle of no where and most of the video stores where I live are quite crappy. So alas we are stuck with the 1970’s version of Snatchers.
Not that that’s a bad thing.
Why not? Two words: Donald Sutherland.
As the credits roll, we see a bunch of weird spores flying through space. They cross thousands of light-years and eventually land in San Francisco, where the spores all open and become pretty flowers. Humans, being both stupid and gullible, take the flowers home.
Enter Matt (Sutherland.) who works of the city department of health. He’s just minding his own business until one day when his friend Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) complains that her husband, Geoffrey is acting . . .strange. Suddenly he seams cold, emotionless, flat. It appears Geoffrey has become a Republican.
But Liz just can’t except that. So Matt takes her to see psychologist Dr. David Kibner, (Lenord Nimoy). Being a psychologist David tries to convince Beth that its all in her mind, much to the distaste of Matt’s other friend Jack (a very young Jeff Goldblume) who thinks Kibner’s theories are crap.
Well you probably already know this story. It turns out that alien spores are duplicating the entire population of San Fran. Soon its down to just Matt, Liz, Jack and Jack’s wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) running through the streets at night trying to avoid getting replicated.
This is one of those movies in which everyone is a suspect. As such it’s the little twists and turns along the way the make you enjoy this movie. To protect such twists and turns I won’t say anymore.
Except this: With this Cast how could you go wrong? Well, Director Philip Kaufman obviously didn’t, since the cast here is at there best. Sutherland gives a quite well rounded performance as Matt. Brooke Adams (starlet of such, supposed greats as Days of Heaven and such supposed non-greats as The Unborn) does more then just scream when she plays Elizabeth. Instead, she puts some actual effort into her scenes. Even if she does do a lot of crying in the last half of the movie.
And you just can’t go wrong with Jeff Goldblume. Even if it is still years until he would define his goofy scientist role in The Fly, he still manages to be pseudo-goofy. You can see the signs of greatness showing through his performance as Jack, a rather normal guy considering some of the people Goldblume would play in latter work.
Since all these duplicates are devoid of emotions who better to play one then a former Vulcan? So enters Lenord Nimoy. He manages to put in a decent performance as a psychiatrist, and an even better one as a pod person (crap I’ve said too much).
Even Veronica Cartwright manages to do well in her role as the masseuse, Nancy. If she looks familiar to you its because she also played Lambert in the original Alien and ether griped or screamed for the entire movie. Her she gripes, screams, and (like everyone else in the cast) says, "I know how crazy this sounds" a lot of times to Lenord Nimoy’s character. But she isn’t anoying, which is something.
Now here is the definitive alien invasion movie, and a true classic of its genre, rent Invasion of the Body Snatchers with confidence that you’ll get 2 hours worth of good, paranoid, fun.
RATING(OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
MAN, I SOUND LIKE THE BACK OF THE MOVIE'S BOX
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