Meg Tilly is phenomenal, as well as disturbingly sexy, as the cold and distant pod woman. Otherwise, this movie is silly, poorly scripted, way too fast-paced, has characters you never really care for, nearly none of the cleverly, slowly built-up paranoia and tension that made the '78 version so damn effective and engaging, yeah the list goes on ..
First of all, choosing an army base as the location for the movie was a downright ridiculous idea .. I mean, soldiers are pretty much supposed to be cold, adhere strictly to conformity and suppress individuality already .. So how are you gonna tell the difference between humans and pod people?? This kinda defeats the entire purpose of the film, I think ..
Then there is the pacing .. It simply moves on way too fast and abruptly. When Meg Tilly is transformed, no one except the little boy who saw the transformation first hand seems to notice it -- only when it becomes alarmingly clear that something isn't at all as it should be (when she gives her famous speech: "there's no one like you left"). Where is the growing suspicion, the fear and self-doubt that the '78 version portrayed so well? I guess there was no time for that in this version, as it moves from 'building-up tension' to 'fast paced action with no time to think' like all of a sudden, and way too abruptly .. And no time to actually get to know your protagonist family and learn to care for them .. Almost the entire family is wiped out by the pod people, and it didn't really get to me .. Unlike the '78 version, where both Elizabeth's and Matthew's transformations were absolutely horrifying ..
4/10
First of all, choosing an army base as the location for the movie was a downright ridiculous idea .. I mean, soldiers are pretty much supposed to be cold, adhere strictly to conformity and suppress individuality already .. So how are you gonna tell the difference between humans and pod people?? This kinda defeats the entire purpose of the film, I think ..
Then there is the pacing .. It simply moves on way too fast and abruptly. When Meg Tilly is transformed, no one except the little boy who saw the transformation first hand seems to notice it -- only when it becomes alarmingly clear that something isn't at all as it should be (when she gives her famous speech: "there's no one like you left"). Where is the growing suspicion, the fear and self-doubt that the '78 version portrayed so well? I guess there was no time for that in this version, as it moves from 'building-up tension' to 'fast paced action with no time to think' like all of a sudden, and way too abruptly .. And no time to actually get to know your protagonist family and learn to care for them .. Almost the entire family is wiped out by the pod people, and it didn't really get to me .. Unlike the '78 version, where both Elizabeth's and Matthew's transformations were absolutely horrifying ..
4/10