reVIEW (44)
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Having watched Nicholas Roeg’s classic “psychic thriller” Don’t Look Now last night, I decided to make a mini-Donald Sutherland festival of it, and booked a return trip to San Francisco circa 1978 to watch, for the umpteenth time, the pod people take root, in Philip Kaufman’s awesome Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

1978.
I missed seeing Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers with my family because I had to stay home, sick. The next day, my older brothers regaled me with some of the film’s highlights, including of course, the bit with Pooch, and that nasty, nasty last shot. (Even back then, the term “spoilers” was alien to my brothers.)
I got to see the film later on, and it’s to the credit of Kaufman and everyone else who was involved with this second cinematic adaptation of the Jack Finney novel, The Body Snatchers, that the movie still worked like gangbusters, even if I already knew some of the vital beats of the narrative.
Over the subsequent years, Invasion of the Body Snatchers would remain the solid core of my Kaufman Three, to be joined by 1983‘s The Right Stuff and 1990’s Henry & June.
And even now, three decades later, the film still gets me.

Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is an employee of the Department of Public Health, who, along with co-worker Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) and some friends, gradually uncovers an insidious invasion of our planet, by alien pods that duplicate humans, producing identical replicas that possess the memories of the original, though stripped of all emotion.
While the first film adaptation—Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956—was an allegory for an America under the shadow of the Red Scare and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Kaufman’s spin on the material is a wildly effective exercise in urban paranoia, and the fear of conspiracy.
In the film, the city that is arguably the most free-thinking and liberal in the United States, San Francisco, becomes ground zero for this creeping, unseen invasion whose ultimate goal is total conformity. Utilizing the trappings of civilization—the vast, faceless bureaucracy; the daily workings of a bustling metropolis—as both mask and tool, this sort of take over, a cultural and societal cancer, if you will, is far more disturbing than the death rays-a-blazing gambit of other science fiction invasion films like Independence Day or War of the Worlds.

Aside from the effective leads, Kaufman also drafted Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright (as Jack and Nancy Bellicec), as well as Leonard Nimoy (as psychiatrist David Kibner), who deliver some excellent supporting performances.
Kaufman also gathered some great behind-the-scenes personnel, including pioneering sound designer Ben Burtt, who provides some truly unnerving aural effects (one can never truly shake off the pod shriek), and make-up effects wizard Tom Burman (fourth on my list of Best Special Make-Up Effects Dudes, Ever),* responsible for the major creepfest which was the multiple pod births in the garden sequence.
And the cameos…
Kevin McCarthy runs out of the 1956 version, right into this one, and Don Siegel trades in his director’s chair for the driver’s seat of a cab. Priceless.

As I mentioned above, this film is 30 years old, and it’s still as powerful and disturbing today as it was back then. Kaufman hit this one dead on, succeeding where the third and fourth adaptations (Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers and Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s The Invasion) ultimately failed.
In point of fact, in this post 9/11 age where all—even governments—are suspect, and where racial profiling is a questionable exercise since skin colour cannot genuinely reflect a person’s inner ideology, Kaufman’s grim vision of a society changed overnight is perhaps even more chilling today than it was in 1978.

* Number one: Rick Baker.
Number two: Rob Bottin.
Number three: Tom Savini.
Tom Burman has been keeping busy recently working on TV’s Nip/Tuck and Grey’s Anatomy. Back in the day, he also did notable make-up effects work on Oliver Stone’s The Hand, Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People, the Michael Myers-less Halloween installment, Season of the Witch, Brian De Palma’s Body Double, and slasher fare like My Bloody Valentine and Happy Birthday To Me.

Parting shot: Aside from all its other strengths, Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers also sports the cruelest use of “Amazing Grace” outside of an American Idol audition show that I’ve ever seen.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of the fourth film adaptation of The Body Snatchers, The Invasion, as well as Steven Spielberg’s take on War of the Worlds, can be found in the Archive.

(Invasion of the Body Snatchers OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)

reVIEW (38)
FALLEN

“There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same, and time is divided into two parts: before this, and after this.”

A bit of voice-over narration that sounds suspiciously as if it was lifted from Rosellen Brown’s excellent novel, Before And After, and a good case in point of what’s wrong with Gregory Hoblit’s Fallen: there is nothing original here.
A convicted serial killer named Reece (Elias Koteas) is executed for his crimes, but somehow manages to wreak more havoc on the innocent. Let’s see: Shocker, The First Power, The Horror Show.
Early on in the film, we are also shown that there is actually an entity that jumps from body to body, and it’s actually this entity that’s behind the murders. Ummm… The Hidden? Even Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday used this tack.

Now, one may argue that in this day and age, nothing is original anymore; Shakespeare’s done it all.
At the very least though, one can still give old material a new spin and come up with a good (or at times, great) piece of work: Ridley Scott’s visionary Alien reworked the Ten Little Indians scenario, gave us a haunted house in outer space, and produced a sci-fi/horror classic.
Sadly, Fallen doesn’t aim very high. It fails to do anything innovative with the material, and worse, doesn’t even succeed in giving the audience a thrill-packed ride.

“Cops are chosen people, Lou.”
-- Hobbes

The fault lies in Fallen’s script; written by Nicholas Kazan (who penned the riveting Reversal of Fortune for Barbet Schroeder), the screenplay is amazingly flat, a tension-free exercise in by-the-numbers suspense.
Denzel Washington (as Detective John Hobbes), though bringing a certain sensitivity and sympathy to his character, doesn’t get much to work with. And though I’m always glad to see Donald Sutherland (as Lt. Stanton), he isn’t given much to work with either, and ends up underutilized and wasted.

It seems a mystery why setting up the entire scenario for Hobbes and his adversary Azazel, takes a full hour, considering that anyone who’s seen the film’s trailer knows what Fallen is about.
Then, just when you think there could be a promising direction for the narrative to take—when theology teacher Greatta Milano (Schindler’s List’s Embeth Davidtz) mentions a possible source of help—Kazan’s script seems to just disregard the avenue completely, leaving the audience to languidly follow in the movie’s footsteps (or rather, bound two or three steps ahead, waiting impatiently for the film to catch up).
And though the squad room banter is snappy and commendable, one doesn’t really sign up for Fallen to see Hill Street Blues on the big screen either.

Of course, the film isn’t helped any by Hoblit’s matter-of-course directing.
Let’s face it—Hoblit’s Primal Fear wasn’t anything to write home about either; the only noteworthy thing about Primal Fear was Edward Norton’s stunning performance. (Well… okay. Laura Linney was good too.)
Sure, the Azazel POV shots in Fallen are interesting, but Michael Wadleigh did it in Wolfen, as did Paul Schrader in his remake of Cat People.
Save for a couple of intense body-jumping sequences about halfway through Fallen, most of the time, the audience is left with idle moments, allowing their minds to wander freely (much like the disembodied Azazel) and predict what’s going to happen next.
Ultimately, you just know how the film will end, including whose body Azazel will occupy in the final battle of wills with Hobbes.

“I have so many, many ways.”
-- Azazel

Curious, this penchant Azazel has for singing; I have yet to come across any reference to indicate Azazel has some musical bent (unless I’m reading the wrong books). The only link I can find (and it’s a long stretch, tenuous at best) is in the original Greek root for the word “tragedy.”
Or maybe Azazel just picked up the habit recently, in karaoke bars…
But I digress.
Going back to Fallen, ultimately we’re left with a drab film that doesn’t break any new ground, and spending two hours to find this out is, to my mind, not a very productive way to pass the time.
Not even the “surprise” concerning the voice-over bits (which are quite frankly annoying and intrusive) does much for the film.
Which all leads me to one inescapable conclusion: if you aren’t going to say anything new, then what’s the point?
As good old Jack once said in As Good As It Gets, “If you can’t at least be mildly interesting, then shut the hell up.”
A rather apt quote for this film, I think.

(Fallen OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(The above is a slightly altered version of a previously published review entitled, “Fallen Flat On Its Face.”)