Daniel Craig And Nicole Kidman Starred In A Failed Adaptation Of A Classic Sci-Fi Novel

In 2006, Daniel Craig revitalized the then-flailing 007 franchise with the best James Bond movie ever made: "Casino Royale." His next film? A failed adaptation of Jack Finney's classic 1955 sci-fi novel "The Body Snatchers." "The Invasion" saw Craig team up with Nicole Kidman to stop the spread of an alien virus. Sadly, they couldn't stop the movie from bombing at the box office or from receiving a wave of negative reviews decrying it as being the cinematic equivalent of those hollow "pod people" duplicates.

"The Invasion" was far from the first adaptation of Finney's story. Director Don Siegel's celebrated 1956 effort "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was the very first. Its story of alien pods subsuming humans in a small California town and creating mindless clones was taken as a commentary on McCarthyism and the general communist paranoia of the era. Mind you, comments from Siegel and others involved in making the movie have called into question just how intentional those parallels were. Still, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" remains a hugely influential work that, whether intentionally or not, spoke to something quite dark within the culture at the time.

1978 saw filmmaker Philip Kaufman take another shot at telling the "Body Snatchers" story with "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Once again, the story resonated and critics even commended Kaufman for improving on the 1956 film adaptation with a movie that seemed to honor the legacy of the countercultural movement while tapping into fears about surveillance and consumerism. After that, 1993 brought director Abel Ferrara's "Body Snatchers" which once again earned praise for presenting a successful '90s horror version of the story, this time set on a military base. Next, it was Craig and Kidman's turn, and this was where things went off the rails.

"The Invasion" is directed by German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel, who is otherwise known for helming the Adolf Hitler war drama "Downfall" and, indirectly, the multiple memes it spawned (which, happily, Hirschbiegel enjoyed). The director also oversaw several episodes of Apple TV's "Constellation," a sci-fi series that was received much more positively than "The Invasion."

Hirschbiegel's 2007 effort begins with a space shuttle crashing to Earth, bringing with it a strange fungus-like substance that, you guessed it, is actually an alien virus. Nicole Kidman plays Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Carol Bennell, whose patients start to report that their loved ones are "not themselves." Soon, Carol starts to notice similar behavior among the people around her, so she enlists her friend and colleague Dr. Ben Driscoll (played by Daniel Craig in what is surprisingly one of his best roles) to help her figure out what the heck is going on. Driscoll and his colleague determine that this new virus takes hold of people while they sleep, turning them into hollow shells of their former selves. With the whole world slowly being infected, it's up to Carol and Ben to find a cure, the key to which might just exist within Carol's own son, Oliver (Jackson Bond).

Sadly, this version of the story fails to recognize what it's supposed to be about. When one of the converted humans suggests that all war would be eradicated if everyone succumbed to the virus (much like in the superb, peculiar sci-fi series "Pluribus"), is the movie saying that to be anti-war is to be a mindless drone? We're still not sure, and neither is the movie itself.

Part of the problem with "The Invasion" was that it had a troubled production. After the film's original cut was turned in, Warner Bros. tapped The Wachowskis to help punch it up. The directing duo then contributed extra writing while their longtime collaborator and "V for Vendetta" director James McTeigue re-shot multiple scenes. It didn't help. In fact, it might have made things worse.

At the time of writing "The Invasion" bears a mere 20% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert wasn't a fan, noting how the movie took Jack Finney's original story and "churn[ed] through it like a road company production." What's more, he criticized the heavy-handed yet somehow still nebulous allegory at the heart of the film, writing, "How many references in the same movie can you have to the war in Iraq and not say anything about it?"

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times was similarly unimpressed. The critic called "The Invasion" the "latest and lamest version of Don Siegel's 1956 pulp classic," attacking its politics as "abhorrent" and the filmmakers for "wasting" Daniel Craig. Just what its politics are, however, remains somewhat of a mystery.

Even with all that said, "The Invasion" just misses out on being one of the worst sci-fi movies of the 21st century. Craig is under-used but great, and Nicole Kidman delivers a typically convincing performance even while the script leaves a lot to be desired. That said, this also isn't one of those sci-fi movies with awful reviews that are still worth watching. The three previous "Body Snatchers" adaptations, however, are very much worth seeking out if you're yet to see them.