Based on the 1955 novel by Jack Finney, a planet-wide alien takeover begins on the down low by replacing people with emotionless clones grown in pods as the people sleep at night.

Teenage girl, Marti, moves to a military base with her family, makes friends with a rebellious Army brat, and finds an unlikely love interest in the form of a hunky chopper pilot. Then she uncovers the alien takeover and she must do anything to survive and maintain her human anatomy autonomy.

I liked the juxtaposition of the alien hive mind with the military. I think it was trying to give social commentary to the mindlessness of following orders, but it wasn’t successful at much of anything including delivering any kind of socially relevant message.

The cast included Gabrielle Anwar, Meg Tilly, R. Lee Ermey, and Forest Whitaker. The performances were as expected for a horror/sci-fi film about pod people, but could have been better. It really felt like the actors half-assed their way through this one.

I think the 1978 version of this story was a bit better with regard to suspense and story structure. This updated version lost the gravity of the extraordinary events and just left me feeling like: “Meh, I’m ’bout to forget all of this in 5 minutes.”

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