Written by David Kajganich Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel Running Time: 1:32 Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and terror. C

The Invasion was a so-so thriller which moved along at a nice pace but wasn't nearly as scary as it could have been.

Carol and her son Oliver have a very close bond but when her ex-husband suddenly calls and wants to be a part of Oliver's life again, Carol feels something is amiss. And she's right. An alien life form has crash landed on Earth and is slowly taking over the population. Once it enters you, when you fall asleep, it takes over and turns you into some kind of Stepford wife. Carol must race to save her son from the aliens, because Oliver may have the cure for the world buried deep inside him.

I don't recall ever seeing any version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers so I don't know how The Invasion compares. But on its own merits, the movie was so-so but jumped around too much to keep me interested. There were times where we'd jump ahead a few seconds in a scene only to come back to the present, and I was never quite sure of the reason behind that. Then there was the whole issue that these alien beings weren't very scary. I should say, the small latex alien beings when they took over human bodies, weren't that scary. They were just kind of boring. They'd stare at you or walk quickly behind you. But as they never showed emotion, there was nothing for me to hang my hat on. It was like watching a slo-mo version of a horror film. I never felt that fear or that suspense throughout the movie. I kept waiting for there to be a pivotal scene where the tide would shift and suddenly things would take off, but that scene never happened. I thought we might have been headed that way towards the end, but then the movie just ended.

Daniel Craig is in this movie. You might not realize it from the trailers because he is rarely if ever shown. As it turns out, his role isn't huge, but it is probably the third most important role in the film. Why not show him to drum up interest? He's James Bond for God's sake. Not that his role had a whole lot to do, but still. Nicole Kidman plays the scared woman role fairly well, and I could see the love she had for her kid. And Jackson Bond, the kid who plays Oliver, was cute and the kind of kid you cheer for. There were parts of the movie that were fun, like when Carol and Oliver beat up a small kid or when the car gets set on fire. But otherwise it was just a lot of drama that took you from one scene to the next, but not really keeping you engaged. Maybe the filmmakers were interested in making some kind of psychological thriller where you really start to wonder if being taken over by an alien life form isn't so bad. But they only really ask that question towards the end. The rest of the movie is meant to be scary. You're meant to want to have Carol find and save her son and the world to be saved. But considering her biggest challenge was to basically stay awake, I didn't find it very thrilling.

So overall, I thought The Invasion was so-so. It had moments of excitement, but for the most part, it wasn't thought out very well. If it was meant to be a drama, then be a drama. If it's meant to be a thriller, then it really needs to have some more thrills.

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