Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep. Always good rules of thumb to follow if you find yourself trapped in an “Invasion of the Body Snatcher” movie. In this third remake of the sci-fi classic of paranoia, the characters led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig find out just how hard it can be.

Pretty much a faithful adaptation of the original story until the mid way point, THE INVASION differs automatically from any previous entries in Body Snatcher lore by making the invaders a form of a hive minded infectious disease. Not a pod in sight, but a trapped current fear of biological attack is the main focus. The concept actually works very well, until you realize that no character is killed and replicated, just under an influence. This actually negates the fear that you will one day wake up as a completely different creature, inhuman and cold.

The second half of the movie seems to disintegrate into a prolonged chase sequence, with many catch & escape and rescue scenarios playing out ad naseum. Many of the ideas and concepts that were set up in the first half either fade into the background or completely disappear as a result. A bit of a muddled mess in places, THE INVASION is still watchable and be taken as light entertainment.

Very reviled among audiences and critics upon its theatrical release, THE INVASION was subjected to pre-release reshoots to bump up the action. On the disc commentary nothing is mentioned of this or any scenes that were cut or replaced, which is surprising considering how public the behind the scenes drama was. The movie is not as bad as we are lead to believe, but there are definite missteps.

The HD picture quality, while a bit grainy from the source materials, is very good which fits in with the quality of recent big studio HD releases. The opening space shuttle scene looks especially vibrant and crisp with clean blacks and sharp colors. The movie’s use of vivid color which slowly grows desaturated as the invasion progresses is especially effective, with the final scenes playing out among a harsh, bright clinical color scheme. It adds to the impersonal, otherworldly quality of the situation. There is surprisingly not a hint of artifacing or ghosting, which I found to be evident in many Warner HD releases. Warner provides a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround track (48 kHz/16-bit) for 'The Invasion,' and it stands tall with the video -- a very fine, involving presentation. (Optional Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround dubs are provided in French and Spanish, along with English SDH and French and Spanish subtitles).

Extras are brief and disappointing. Three brief featurettes (around three minutes each) are mostly promotional in nature. The list of supplements included on 'The Invasion' initially looks impressive, until you actually watch them. The featurettes are all presented in full 1080i/VC-1 video (Subtitle options on the extras include English, French and Spanish).

Featurette: "The Invasion: A New Story" (HD, 3 minutes) - The first of three production featurettes (which run 9 minutes, combined), this EPK features the usual on-set interviews with cast and crew, including Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Veronica Cartwright, producer Joel Silver, director Oliver Hirschbiegel, screenwriter David Kajganich and others. In this one, they talk up the screenplay, and how it’s relevant to today's sociopolitical concerns.

Featurette: "The Invasion: On the Set" (HD, 3 minutes) - This one gives us only the quickest glimpse of the shoot, with absolutely none of the much-publicized drama even hinted at.

Featurette: "The Invasion: Snatched" (HD, 3 minutes) - The final making-of again expounds upon the film's themes, which were subsequently turned into a mishmash by the final cut.

Featurette: "We've Been Snatched Before: Invasion in Media History" (HD, 19 minutes) - Silver, Kajganich, Cartwright, Northam and a few scholarly types discuss the long legacy of the body snatcher films, going all the way back to Don Siegel's original 1956 classic, though they mostly stick to discussing 'The Invasion.' Also a negative is the fact that there are no actual film clips of the previous versions (possibly due to copywrite or legal reasons. This is easily the best featurette included in this combo DVD/HD DVD package.

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