But while Hirschbiegel - making his English-language debut after gaining Hollywood's attention with Downfall, his adrenalized take on the final, furious days of Adolf Hitler - works in some Apple product placement (Kidman uses an iBook), there are no iPods.
Worse yet, there are no pods.
Fans of Don Siegel's 1956 original, Philip Kaufman's 1978 re-do, and Abel Ferrara's 1994 Body Snatchers should gird themselves: as the extraterrestrial virus spreads across the land, warping the DNA of slumbering masses, all that happens is that the infected get clammy, and icky bits of gelatinous goo cling to their skin.
Then they wake up, take a shower, and go about their business: a crowd of soulless conformists doing the work, and buying the stuff, that makes the country hum.
If The Invasion is about anything other than jumpy chases, rampant paranoia and projectile vomiting (that's how the organism is transmitted), it's about personal freedom versus social control and government/corporate guardianship. That's a big, amorphous "about" - kind of what The Bourne Ultimatum touches on between its jumpy chase sequences and rampant paranoia. (The two films also share a breaking-into-a-pharmacy opening scene.)
But The Invasion is mostly about delivering thrills, and chills, and this it does with moderate success and a bunch of fast, no-nonsense edits. As Carol Bennell, a Washington psychiatrist, Kidman speaks softly, carries a big prescription pad, and relishes her time with her cute little son (Jackson Bond). Dad (Jeremy Northam), a government disease-control honcho, has moved out - the exes are haggling over visitation rights, and it's no surprise that one of the first of the movie's players to come down with this insistent new "flu" strain is the slick, sinister former spouse.
