‘Invasion’ brings touch of humor to old film

In theaters

THE INVASION, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, written by David Kajganich, 96 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Oliver Hirschbiegel’s thriller “The Invasion” is the latest movie based on Jack Finney’s sci-fi novel “The Body Snatchers,” which first was serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954 before being made into four films – 1956’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the 1978 remake of the same name, 1993’s “Body Snatchers,” and now this.

Though this version has nothing on the films that came before it, it does offer a dark slice of humor tucked within its inspired casting.

The film stars Nicole Kidman as Dr. Carol Bennell, a pill-pushing, pill-popping psychiatrist whose creepy ex-husband, Tucker (Jeremy Northam), is overcome by aliens and who, in turn, turns those close to him into disconnected, dehumanized shells of their former selves, just as he himself has become.

Though it’s doubtful that Kidman took the role to poke fun at her ex-husband Tom Cruise, it’s no secret he’s no fan of psychiatry and a quick Google tells us that neither he nor Xenu was at the film’s premiere.

The movie opens with a space shuttle crashing to Earth and spreading alien spores across a vast terrain. Quickly, those curious enough to touch the debris become infected, which leads to a mass outbreak of sameness.

Everyone starts to behave as if they’re on a morphine drip. Personalities are eradicated, though violence nevertheless thrives even as worldwide peace is achieved. These people, all reborn from the film’s updated version of a pod, are willing to attack if it means spreading those spores. The idea is that once we’re all infected, we’ll essentially be a large nest of worker ants drained of our souls and the need to kill.

But at what cost? Our individuality, of course, which Carol and others are willing to fight to protect. Motivating her- – and driving the film’s action – is that her son, Oliver (Jackson Bond), has been kidnapped by Tucker in an effort to convert him.

Since Carol isn’t about to let that happen, in spite of the fact that she’s become infected by Tucker herself, the gloves are off, with an underused Daniel Craig joining Carol in her effort to save him and, by extension, the rest of the world.

From David Kajganich’s script, “The Invasion” opened to a rush of negative press, all stemming from the fact that for over a year, the movie sat unreleased by Warner Bros., which eventually (and quietly) brought in the Wachowski brothers to tweak the script, and director James McTeigue to reshoot several scenes.

The result isn’t the train wreck of styles you might expect, but a tightly paced, involving movie that underscores the timeless appeal of Finney’s tale.

This isn’t the best recent remake of a modern-day horror classic – that would go to Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” -but it does tap into the fear that Earth and its inhabitants are just one microbe or spore away from ruin.

Some, of course, might say that in this era of the iPod, technology already has brought us there, neatly turning us into zombies whose lives are increasingly disconnected, isolated and internal. “Invasion” oddly misses that angle, but what it finds in the heat of its biological angle proves stirring enough.

Grade: B-

On HD DVD

THE HURRICANE, directed by Norman Jewison, written by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon, 125 minutes, rated R.

Just as New Jersey-born boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a crowd-pleaser in the ring, Norman Jewison’s 2000 film based on the man’s life, “The Hurricane,” is a crowd-pleaser on high-definition HD DVD.

The film is big and emotional, underscored with crushing disappointments and wounding indifference, hope won and hope lost, evil reigning while righteous indignation burns.

It’s one of those rare movies that works in spite of its overt contrivances and manipulations, a film whose soul seethes with outrage, defiance, and two of Jewison’s favorite topics – social and racial injustice.

It’s a flaw that Jewison (“In the Heat of the Night,” “A Soldier’s Story”) finds no middle ground here, no room for characters who aren’t either purely evil or purely good (the liberties the director took in fleshing out Carter’s life are many), and it’s a shame he doesn’t trust his story enough to steer clear of melodrama, but the good news is how terrific “The Hurricane” is regardless of its shortcomings.

The reason it’s so good is because of Denzel Washington’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Carter, a man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit only to be freed after the enormous efforts of three Canadians (played here by Liev Schreiber, John Hannah and Deborah Kara Unger). Jewison never explores the communal relationship between these three, but that oversight doesn’t harm the film.

Our focus – and Jewison’s -is on Washington, one of our best actors, who has rarely been this good. Throughout, he wears Carter’s demons like a mask, turning the man’s deep inner turmoil and even deeper sense of pride into a showpiece for restraint that builds to a rousing climax.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.