The Invader (1997)

Really Surprised!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I found this watchable and almost okay, in a "this is total fantasy and makes not one iota of sense" way.In the real universe, each planet has its own slow evolution of life. While something like eyes might be required for any line of critter to become intelligent and certainly for any critter to become interested in space travel (if you never see stars, you'd never wonder about them), the chance of other species evolving to look like humans approaches zero. The chance of other aliens having two eyes over a nose over a mouth approaches zero. There's no guarantee of bilateral symmetry, even. The chance of inter-species breeding is zero. Hey, we can't even interbreed with chimps, who are our coevals and share 99% of DNA with us. Aliens will never ever ever come to earth to impregnate earth girls. Never. And no pregnancy, no matter its origins, could move that fast. Where is the fetus getting its mass from? So, knowing that, a viewer understands the movie is not s-f at all, it's more a romantic fantasy. But it's an interesting romance because the alien who impregnates (which, as she points out, is really sort of rapes, though no genital contact is required) our heroine becomes eventually her friend but not her love interest; she still loves her estranged husband who is pursuing the wife he assumes to be kidnapped. Half of the movie is this not-quite-romance fantasy plot, which involves the marital separation and their childlessness and her teaching life and BFF, and half of it is a lengthy chase scene where Bad Alien pursues Good Raping Alien. (Why? We never really understand that either, and why a species would spend so much of its planetary resources to kill off another planet's intelligent inhabitants has never made any sense, but it's a sf trope no one seems to question, so there you have it. "just because.") And you don't want to overthink the details of the chase, either, not the police procedural bits certainly, nor why handcuffs work on Alien A but not on Alien B, nor do you want to ask why Good Raping Alien and Pregnant Woman have to drive all that way to meet these advanced aliens' fleet rather than the fleet coming down wherever they damned well please, but really, don't think about any of that, and it ends up being pretty well acted by some decent actors, and pretty well paced for a girly Lifetime TV movie (which it wasn't but could have been).And even for that sort of movie, you don't want to think too much about how the message of this film to women is "getting pregnant is the be-all of your life, and if you can't, you're not worth much, and even rape by an alien, if it cures your infertility, is better than nothing." But ignore the biological factual errors, the logical errors, and anti-woman message, and hey, it's not that awful. It's certainly not a one-star movie or the worst movie I've seen this week.

I saw this in the market place at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a real cheapo prod - nothing wrong with that but you have to make up for it with a bit of sex or gore or both. Think Larry Cohen. Sean Young is an interesting actor - well done to the producers for hooking her I guess.The opening scene in the space-ship coming down is hilarious - you could picture all the crew hands shaking it around! Ha ha - but I wish the people who made this well - at least it's not pretentious.

"The Invader" is a inoffensive film, but it falls short due to a predictable by-the-numbers plot and cliched elements that it borrows from many different superior sci-fi films.While "Invader" is a cliched film, it does have it's merits. The script is quite good, the acting is hit or miss, and some of the special effects are decent (like the space ship chase scene in the opening sequence--some nice model and blue screen work), but a pace that moves like molasses, a unimaginative plot, and all-too-human looking aliens hammer it.

THE INVADERS IS A FAST MOVING SCI-FI THRILLER STARRING BEN CROSS AND SEAN YOUNG. BEN PLAYS RENN, A TRAVELLER FROM ANOTHER GALAXY TRYING TO FIND ANNIE (PLAYED BY SEAN) WHO IS PHYSICALLY IDEAL TO HAVE HIS CHILD. THIS CHILD, IF ALLOWED TO BE BORN AND RETURNED TO HIS PLANET, MAY BE THE ONLY CHANCE FOR HIS RACE TO SURVIVE. THE ENEMY, AN ALIEN WHO HAS DESTROYED RENN'S PEOPLE, HAS ALSO FOLLOWED RENN ACROSS THE STARS TO STOP THIS BIRTH. CROSS AGAIN SHOWS GREAT RANGE FROM COMICAL BEGINNINGS AS THE ALIEN ENTERS A LOCAL BAR AND ORDERS HIS FIRST EARTHLING COCKTAIL, TO HIS RACE WITH THE ENEMY AND THE DRAMA OF WHETHER HE CAN KEEP ANNIE AND THE CHILD SHE IS CARRYING ALIVE.