Uuuggghhh... don't listen to the other reviews on this page; this movie is not that good. It has a monumental cast of six (OK, ten including the paramedics, the cab driver and the policeman) and there's not one good special effect in the entire movie. I'm not even sure that blurry images count as "special" effects, they're more like plain old effects. Of course, you can make a good movie without special effects, but this movie's plot is TAKEN (not a takeoff) from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
It concerns a scientist, who has just landed a probe on Mars, taking a vacation with his family. Suddenly he and his wife start seeing doubles of each other, and his daughter's boyfriend dies in a mysterious car accident (which causes them unbearable grief for about ten seconds). The scientist comes to the logical conclusion that these events must have something to with his Mars probe, so he calls up his friend Weber, who looks like Professor Fate's nerdy twin brother, to come investigate. They find out that Martians are indeed behind all this, and they (the Martians) are energy beings who can take the form of anything they want (the idea of beings consisting of pure intellectual force and no emotion has definite potential, but it could have been done so much better than this). He and Weber decide to "dissipate" the Martians without any explanation as to how they're going to do that, but first they have to get the damn driveway gate open, which has gotten stuck. So for the last ten minutes of the movie the wife is calling the maintenance department to come fix the gate while Weber tries to pry it open with a crowbar. By now the goofy meter is totally off the scale, because Weber is just working away at this gate with epic suspense music playing in the background (and no Martians in sight). It's like watching "Home Improvement" set to a horror movie soundtrack. I won't give away the ending, but I can assure you Weber does indeed get the gate open, which is pretty much the most climactic moment in the entire movie.
The movie does have some interesting, shadowy atmospherics, and the scene where the wife is being chased through the garden is well done and scary. On the whole, however, it is long, boring, lackluster, and illogical. The aliens' motivation for attacking the humans is shady (it's not like the probe was harming them or anything), and the "energy being" thing, while it could be a good device in another movie, just drives home this movie's Z-grade budget. I can't believe I watched this from start to finish. I could have spent that time mowing the lawn or something. Jeez.
It concerns a scientist, who has just landed a probe on Mars, taking a vacation with his family. Suddenly he and his wife start seeing doubles of each other, and his daughter's boyfriend dies in a mysterious car accident (which causes them unbearable grief for about ten seconds). The scientist comes to the logical conclusion that these events must have something to with his Mars probe, so he calls up his friend Weber, who looks like Professor Fate's nerdy twin brother, to come investigate. They find out that Martians are indeed behind all this, and they (the Martians) are energy beings who can take the form of anything they want (the idea of beings consisting of pure intellectual force and no emotion has definite potential, but it could have been done so much better than this). He and Weber decide to "dissipate" the Martians without any explanation as to how they're going to do that, but first they have to get the damn driveway gate open, which has gotten stuck. So for the last ten minutes of the movie the wife is calling the maintenance department to come fix the gate while Weber tries to pry it open with a crowbar. By now the goofy meter is totally off the scale, because Weber is just working away at this gate with epic suspense music playing in the background (and no Martians in sight). It's like watching "Home Improvement" set to a horror movie soundtrack. I won't give away the ending, but I can assure you Weber does indeed get the gate open, which is pretty much the most climactic moment in the entire movie.
The movie does have some interesting, shadowy atmospherics, and the scene where the wife is being chased through the garden is well done and scary. On the whole, however, it is long, boring, lackluster, and illogical. The aliens' motivation for attacking the humans is shady (it's not like the probe was harming them or anything), and the "energy being" thing, while it could be a good device in another movie, just drives home this movie's Z-grade budget. I can't believe I watched this from start to finish. I could have spent that time mowing the lawn or something. Jeez.