In a nutshell: A psychiatrist becomes caught up in an alien epidemic and struggles to protect her son from those that have been infected and collectivized. Tagline for this film (thanks, IMDB)... Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep. In terms of trusting anyone involved in the making of this snooze-fest (besides Daniel Craig), never again. Showing emotion? Not a problem, as the movie gives the viewer little to no reason to react to anything in it. Ah, not falling asleep... that's a toughie. Even with some obvious "Hey, wake up!!!" scenes cobbled on, this thing makes a better sedative than warm milk and barbiturates. Like the sleep-deprived, the filmmakers seem to wander about, stumbling into things and making generally poor decisions, the first of which is a pre-title sequence that includes (for no apparent reason) a chopped up scene in a pharmacy from the end of the film. Editing is a powerful tool, and should not be used while under the influence (of producer Joel Silver) or when not completely under control of one's faculties (which no one, even Daniel Craig, seemed to be in this instance - the man is given practically nothing of worth to do, and yet still comes across as the most sympathetic person in the film)... Post-title, we journey into space, where we see a particularly tasteless and insensitive scene involving a space shuttle that disintegrates upon re-entry. This would be a troubling enough reference to the Challenger disaster, were it simply a special effects excuse... but integrated into the sequence is actual news footage from the day of (the smoking remnants of Challenger falling) and after the tragedy, wherein real folks on video describe what they saw. Heartless... and for what? Nicole Kidman plays Dr. Carol Bennell (a "tribute" to Kevin McCarthy's character in the original, Dr. Miles J. Bennell), a shrink once married to Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam), a big deal scientist for the CDC. They have a son, Oliver (Jackson Bond) who could easily pass for AnnaSophia Robb's little brother. Wouldn't you know it, but Tucker appears to be the first person on the planet to be infected with the alien virus, when a passerby casually hands him a piece of shuttle debris (and it cuts him)! Wasn't he ever taught never to accept space debris from strangers? Tucker has a new squeeze and she is unfortunate enough to wake up next to him the next morning, finding him covered with a coating of intergalactic mucus. You see, once you fall asleep the virus copies your DNA and takes over... Once past the yuck stage, one becomes a true member of the hive mind, and can seemingly communicate with everyone else infected, as each person becomes essentially an individual cell in an immense single organism. Kind of like fans of "Lost..." This is the FOURTH go-round for this material, all based on Jack Finney's 1955 novel "The Body Snatchers," which was far and away best served by its initial screen incarnation "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"(1956). The haunting scene of Kevin McCarthy dodging through traffic, helplessly attempting to stop someone, anyone, and make them listen to his warnings ("They're here! They're here!!! You're next!!!) is one of the most famous in the history of science fiction cinema. In that original cult classic, director Don Siegel created a stark black and white world, not only in terms of cinematography, but of civilizations and species. The emotionless, conformist plant-based aliens grew replicas of the happy, independent humans they replaced, as they rapidly spread across the globe.The aliens were symbols of lock-step conformity and could be seen to represent either Communism or McCarthyism (Senator Joe, not Kevin-based), depending on your world view. It is a shame that an effective allegory for our times couldn't have been made in this modern version of the film, with the emotionless victims of the alien menace (this time come in the form of an outer space virus) possibly representing still existing totalitarian concepts (hello, China) or that even more immediate threat to free thought, political correctness. No, there is very little suggested by this current iteration of invaders other than the horror of a world dominated by those with the mass-mind personalities of billions of bored waiting room inhabitants. Who have reread every magazine... The writers of the flick actually attempt to back-handedly berate humanity for not going along with the aliens, for not desiring the peaceful world that derives from a monolithic mindset. The tranquility of the trees in a forest is mentioned as a vision of the alien ideal, while TV images of we fractious humans and those conflicts that derive from our differences play repeatedly throughout the piece. There is, as opposed to real horror, near envy expressed in this film for the alien spores group-think goal... and that's actually scarier than anything else in the whole movie. The virus (and it is one tough sucker, as it easily seems to have weathered both the deep freeze of space and fires of reentry) is spread by the oh-so-subtle means of barfing, once it gets into the first humans. We're talking projectile barfing, close range directly into the victim's face (or into their pots of coffee, which will be certain to give you pause next time you drop in to the old IHOP). Forget the eerie visage of pods slowly growing copies of the neighbors down in dimly-lit noir-ish basements... no, this is the new millennia, and we can't waste time on all that suspense stuff. It's blast 'em with bile, and move on... And speaking of upchucking, you might just get that urge upon experiencing Nicole Kidman overload, which begins to set in just about midway through this viral vanity project. The fact that she is not a credited producer on this picture is amazing, as she is in almost every scene, ad nauseum. When you have seen her in close-up enough to have formulated a list of probable facial enhancements (rhinoplasty - check, lip collagen - check, cheek implants - check, brow lift - check, Botox - double check...) you will know she has been on screen too darned long. Fact is, the woman doesn't so much look like Nicole Kidman these days as she looks like a hybrid Barbie doll version of Nicole Kidman (special Tinseltown limited edition). In less time than it takes a copy of the original "Invasion..." to arrive at your home from your online DVD source, the world has almost completely succumbed, and only small groups and individuals remain "unaffiliated." Carol, with the aid of friend and future Bond (this thing was shot two years ago) Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) find themselves on a quest to find little Oliver (who seems mysteriously immune to the cosmic crud), last heard from texting (endlessly) from his dad's house. They must battle not only their fellow citizens, but the ever-present desire to sleep... sleep... Mountain Dew, away! By the way, Nicole, the last thing you want to tell and show an audience, repeatedly, in an often stultifyingly dull film such as this, is how tired you are, how all you want to do is sleep. They get it, oh, how they get it... The driving theme of the last half of the film becomes twofold: for Carol to retrieve Oliver before he is absorbed, and for the filmmakers to inject some sort of life into this somnambulistic turkey. Pertaining to the secondary goal, producer Silver enlisted the assistance of James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta") in an attempt to retrofit the version initial director Oliver Hirschbiegel wrought. Also brought onboard for reshoots were the Wachowski Brothers ("The Matrix"). The result? Some of the most jarringly juxtaposed imagery in the history of feature films... Pensive scenes of blue-lit angst featuring mother and child hiding in silence and terror (or what passes for terror on the nearly immobile face of Kidman) are slapped up against crunching multi-car crashes that were obviously filmed far away in time and space. "Fantastic Voyage"-like views of floating CGI cells fill the screen, instead of less intricate readouts. Flaming cars appear just for the heck of it, and hoards of formerly passive-aggressive viral zombies suddenly begin attacking en mass. Mood alterations occur mid-scene, almost with the frequency of Kidman's changeable American accent. And the ending - talk about short, sweet and completely at odds with everything the picture had been building towards - reeks of multiple test screenings. Too many, and too many changes... Editorially, plain and simple, this thing is a mess. And yet even with all the desperate additions and deletions, this "Invasion" is defeated at the water's edge by its own incompetent generalship. Better to have just released Hirschbiegel's cut, and to have gone down with dignity. As it stands, this film will still die, but it will die covered in the ugly gunk with which only panicked post-production can infect a flick. Inhumanly incompetent producers/directors/writers... "They're here! They're here!!!" Critic's rating: D (For Drowsy) Rated R- For language