The Puppet Masters (1994)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Really Surprised!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

While "The Puppet Masters" is generally an entertaining movie with a good pace going for it, the simple fact is that it's much too belated an official adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel. We've seen other, similar stories since, including of course "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (although the Heinlein novel actually preceded the Jack Finney book of "Body Snatchers"). The presentation is definitely competent if not inspired. The creatures themselves are fairly cool, and visuals (specifically, the hive interior) are solid, and the script (credited to Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, and David S. Goyer) is fairly intelligent, but the direction (by Stuart Orme) is nondescript. The music is generic stuff, as well.It's an alien invasion tale of starfish shaped slugs that land on Earth, attach themselves to the backs of humans, and control their actions. It doesn't take long for an infection (which starts in rural Iowa) to spread and spread. The man in charge of handling the crisis is Andrew Nivens (an amusing Donald Sutherland, who performs with wit and style), who heads up a covert agency that is an offshoot of the C.I.A. and which deals with "scientific intelligence". Also involved is Andrews' special agent son Sam (Eric Thal) and a scientist (the irresistibly cute Julie Warner) who specializes in theorizing about alien anatomy, believe it or not!The story isn't a bad one but just isn't that meaty; I'm told that, as is so often the case, that the book is a superior work of fiction. The filmmakers do their best to keep us interested in the characters, putting each of them in peril. The stars do good work (this wouldn't work as well were it not for Sutherland), and are well supported by a rich variety of top character actors and familiar faces: Keith David, Will Patton, Richard Belzer, Tom Mason, Yaphet Kotto, Gerry Bamman, Sam Anderson, Marshall Bell, Benjamin Mouton, Andrew Robinson, and Dale Dye (some of them, however, get no more than a few lines).Never boring but never that exciting, either, this does fall victim to the "more than one ending" cliché but does have its good moments too. Best recommended to undemanding fans of the genre.Six out of 10.

Heinlein's book is, I gather, pretty good. I'm not a purist and I don't demand that a movie adaptation follow the print version closely, and in fact I haven't read the novel.But this isn't very good. In plot it seems more an overblown version of "The X Files", except that the federal investigative team has more members, so that some can be taken over by the pods. It's hard to imagine Mulder or Scully zombified.In execution and style it's reminiscent of Carpenter's bombastic version of "The Thing." Gloopy organisms coil themselves around people's faces and boomerang from point to point. Or they auger themselves into a victim's back. They "attach themselves to the spinal cord" of the victim, so you can't tell if someone is possessed or not until you have them strip down the back of their shirts and take a look. Julie Warner's examination was the only bright spot in the film.It bears no resemblance whatever to the classic 1950s science fiction film, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." That much-imitated original (from Jack Finney's novel) began with a normal, steady state of affairs, grew through suspicion, developed into conviction, and led to action.This begins and ends with action, just in case the viewer might be bored during the first ten minutes of exposition and switch to an energy drink commercial just to watch cartoon figures leap around. The gloppy organisms, ripped off shamelessly and pointlessly from "Alien", are on abundant display. The sloppy, sticky, guts are picked apart, accompanied by a lot of scientific gobbledygook.Donald Sutherland's performance provides the eye of this hurricane of horror. He's quiet and controlled, when almost everyone else is running around berserk.The innards of those parasites are a true mess, and so is the film. I can't imagine that Heinlein, a good writer, produced a book that could be so popular and yet so execrable.

This adaptation of a Robert A. Heinlein novel puts things right into gear when Eric Thal, Julie Warner and the ever-competent Donald Shutterland rush off to Ambrose, Iowa to investigate a registered UFO landing. However, collective-minded alien parasites have already begun to take over, turning humans into puppets to do their bidding. Writing trio Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio & David S. Goyer manage to tie things up fashionably, but also overworked themselves providing just about everything. Being a mixture of sci-fi, horror, thriller, action and drama, it's safe to say the wholesome feels a bit disjoint at places. The animatronic slug-like parasites by Roy Arbogast & Co. are a fine creation and get plenty of screen-time. Ambitious entertainment.

OK, how many movies have there been about aliens coming to earth and possessing people? "The Puppet Masters" doesn't seem like much that we haven't seen before; specifically, it looks like a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Still, Donald Sutherland makes the most of his role as a really creepy weirdo. It's just that the movie as a whole doesn't offer anything new. Sutherland, plus Eric Thal, Julie Warner, Keith David, Will Patton, Richard Belzer and Yaphet Kotto all pass in a middling movie.In the thick of everything, you gotta admit that those slugs were pretty nasty-looking.