Invasion (1997)

There is something about movies like Invasion that I get a kick out of and admire is a small way. Material like this feels like a throwback to the fifties and sixies, the dawn of sci-fi. I suppose that judging by those standards, one could make the argument that Battlefield Earth is a success, which may not be such a smart thing to do aloud. Regardless, Invasion is very cheesy, but it is amusing. One night over Arizona, a shower of little black stones rains down on a city. The first to fondle of these stone is Beau Stark, an ordinary law abiding fellow. The tiny thing gives him an electric shock and before long he has a flu, which is messing with his mind. As more people handle the black pebbles scattered across town, the flu starts to spread, first across town then across Arizona and eventually the country. Stark is rallying his fellow infected citizens together to become part of some major plan to build a gateway to space which will (somehow) spell doom for humanity as we know it. Stark's girlfriend teams upwith a handful of Rogue doctors to try an find a cure, while everyone around is out to get them.So what makes something like Invasion any better than say Battlefield Earth? It's a tough argument to make, but not impossible. For one thing Battlefield Earth feels muddled and badly paced, while this more is more temporaly believable (on account of being a three part programme of course). Time duration is very important for the credibility of a thriller or adventure story. More importantly, in Battlefield Earth you really don't care what happens to people. Here you end up actually rooting for and against who you are supposed to. There are times when Invasion feels a little slow, and there are definitely some things that need to be changed, but the programme in general, is a good source of cheesy B-movie sci- fi. I don't know where you would find something like this, and I doubt if it will get any airtime in the future, but if it just happpens to be on the box one night and there is nothing else on (assuming you are a sci-fi geek) may as well watch for a bit.

From time to time I watch a movie and get a sense of "detaching" from the action on-screen. Let me explain: Normally I concentrate on the story and stay focused all the way through, even though fellow movie watchers in a theater disturb me or even when we take short breaks when watching at home to get something to eat, bathroom breaks or whatever. I get back into the story like THAT. But then - sometimes I watch this movie that make me lose concentration and think: "What the h..ll?" and the movie experience is gone."Robin Cook's Invasion" is in that category. The all over feel of the movie gave me a feeling like somebody did not use their brains when making this movie. I mean, many of the elements of the movie did not explain very well - like the date shaped rocks raining down. Why did they have to float in the air over the waste basket? Why did it insert a black goo that had to look like saliva a moment later? When did meteor rocks land on top of sand without making even a tiny dent in it? What was the purpose of the vortex of fire that brought the first stone home (as in - WHY did the first stone go home)? I had huge problems understanding why the aliens poised a threat to Earth, why the aliens wanted to alter the human race, why it was bad if the portal opened and, for that matter, why the stupid space ship blew up because Beau lost his grip on the power dial (or whatever it was).The looks of the "intelligent thingy" inside the stone. Complete with a huge brain, angry eyes and all was just too much. If I am not mistaken, they even managed to call that thingy the VIRUS. Woohoo! An intelligent virus! What exactly was their intended audience here? Children? No - they had some feeble attempts at sex scenes. I think their intended audience must have been the one with lesser IQ. Sorry, this movie did nothing for me.

Space debris falls from the sky and begins to infect people by controlling them . Where have I seen that plot before ? let me see now THE PUPPET MASTERS , THE BLOB , THE THING , the first three QUATERMASS serials , INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and umpteen DOCTOR WHO stories . It`s impossible not to be reminded of these stories while watching INVASION . It`s also impossible not to be reminded that they all did the same story a whole lot better than INVASION did also

I didn't see this miniseries in its original run in 1997, but watched it last week in a rerun on the SCIFI channel because of Robin's Cook's involvement. All of his work (books, screenplays, miniseries) has been consistently good. (Remember "Coma"?). This one was no different. I thought it was an interesting story, played seriously by a better than average cast. Luke Perry plays the leading man, the first to be infected by the alien virus, and his girlfriend (the extremely cute Rebecca Gayheart) who becomes the one to try to save him from it with the help of a molecular biologist in the person of Kim Catrall. As I enjoy most 'virus' type movies (Outbreak, The Stand), I enjoyed this one, too. I give it a 9 out of 10 for a TV miniseries.