Just perfect...

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Blistering performances.

Don't be surprised if you get a feeling of déjà vu while watching this alien invasion thriller, as it's a film which takes bits and pieces from lots of other films along the way to form one loud, unoriginal whole. Saying that, it's still a fairly exciting movie with an above average cast, but the feeling of "been there, done that" which hangs over it stops the film from ever rising above the norm for the '90s. THE PUPPET MASTERS is a lightweight, popcorn film at best, offering up a few thrills along the way but nothing of substance...INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a blindingly obvious influence here, this isn't. Instead it plays more like Abel Ferrara's BODY SNATCHERS remake - shallow, lightweight and pretty much pointless.It's actually pretty good to begin with, but soon the air of paranoia and oppressive atmosphere is dropped in favour of all-out action and clichéd situations. Funnily enough, the film is best when imitating INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, but when it turns into a low budget ALIENS wannabe towards the end, it loses all credibility. My hopes for a subtle, chilling flick were dashed twenty minutes in when we get our first exposure to the aliens, after its host is shot dead and the flying creature leaps on to a window. These aliens resemble giant, slimy slugs, and the influence of the facehugger creatures from ALIEN is also clear. Granted, the special effects are decent, but I would have preferred the creature as something a little more than slime and tentacles.From this point on, our heroes are pursued by unstoppable alien-influenced killers, and the scene is set for a great many entertaining fights and plenty of violent action. Things move sluggishly from one set piece to another, until the uninspired showdown which sees two of our armed heroes storming the alien base, making their way through lots and lots of slime and gooey stuff and saving the day. This is where the film resembles ALIENS the most, and the design of the two nests is almost identical. The saving grace of this part is the nifty entrance to the "nest", done with the aid of a simple yet effective computer graphic.Donald Sutherland takes the lead, and having previously starred in an alien invasion movie in the '70s he knows exactly what to do. Sutherland is fine in this kind of authorative role, although he isn't exactly stretched, instead content to fall back on the smirking persona he so often employs in his '90s films. Eric Thal is the muscular leading man, displaying little acting skill or ability, instead yet another wooden leading man. Julie Warner is the glamorous, predictable love interest, who finds a simple reason to gratuitously walk around in her underwear. Criminally, poor Keith David, who starts off as a solid action man at first, becomes a rampaging alien takeover, yet another case of the black guy getting it in a film of this kind. On the other hand, Yaphet Kotto is wasted, given only a few scenes and minimal dialogue. I will be fair and say that the supporting actors and actresses are all fine, though.The atmosphere of this film is close to that of THE X-FILES, and the television series and this film do share a lot in common, from the male/female partnership right down to the tagline. Although it could have been potentially interesting, THE PUPPET MASTERS is spoilt by pedestrian, workmanlike direction from Stuart Orme, which gives it a kind of television movie ambiance. It's a shame, as I usually really enjoy films of this sort...sadly, it's just a case of a cheap '90s cash-in on some classic movies.

Unfortunate enough to share a name with a brand of dirt-cheap Charles Band movies (but completely disconnected from them) I always figured that The Puppet Masters would be just as schlocky. It ain't art, but it is decent, low-brow, brainless entertainment.A bunch of alien manta-rays land in Iowa in a confusing opening sequence. The authorities arrive and discover that the locals are slowly being turned into mindless slaves to their alien hosts. Sound like the X-Files? It very much does play out like a 3-part episode with virtually the exact same character dynamic and interaction. The tagline for the movie is even 'Trust no one'.It also feels like a John Carpenter movie in some respects (the presence of Keith David, who really ought to be in every movie, only adds to this). And while it's a fairly non-epic movie it does feature some nice anamorphic Panavision photography and a bunch of character actors to keep you entertained in-between the silly plot developments.As well as feeling the X-Files it also comes across as an Invasion of the Body Snatchers rip-off, odd since co-star Donald Sutherland was in one of those movies. Four years later another very similar film called The Faculty also featured mind-controlling alien parasites, as well as the Brain Slugs from Futurama. But apparently it's taken from a novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein but with little in common, perhaps thanks to a zillion re-writes.These kinds of movies often have some kind of political subtext, but Puppet Masters embraces its low-brow but clever silliness and ends up a guilty pleasure.

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.

Despite being one of the key dozen or so science fiction writers of the 20th Century, relatively little of Robert Heinlein's work has been filmed and, with the exception of Starship Troopers (turned on its idealogical head), nothing from the 60s onwards, when his work started to carry more serious subtext.The Puppet Masters, a book from the 50s, is essentially fairly lightweight, albeit the invasion motif is similar to that of much 1950s science fiction in echoing a fear about the spread of communism - indeed, the parasitic slugs in Puppet Masters form a single entity - a commune if you will - and are therefore a fairly obvious analogue for the red menace. The novel was also fairly saucy for its time, with large chunks of the population having to peel down to their skimpies and beyond to prove that their clothing was not hiding the alien slugs.Well, as usual, Hollywood doesn't like to present the naked body to the viewing public, so the protagonists in this film version of Heinlein's story encounter more difficulty than they need to, simply by virtue of everybody keeping their clothes on. Apart from that, it follows the main sequence of events fairly faithfully, albeit updated to be more contemporary.Donald Sutherland is a serviceable "Old Man", even though he is quite different to how I imagined the character from the book (which hardly matters). There are several well-known albeit minor names in the secondary case, but the main leads are taken by Eric Thal and Julie Warner. Neither has had major success before or since (Warner had a lengthy run in Family Law) and, to be perfectly frank, this movie gives a good idea why - they have little charisma, and no chemistry despite the fact that they supposedly fall in love during the film. The story demands lead players who don't come across as insipid, but it doesn't get them.There is relatively little in terms of special effects, but what there is does the job. The major effect is the slugs themselves, and they are pleasingly unpleasant..There is some offensive - and entirely unnecessary - use of the F-bomb. I don't mind it when it's there for a purpose: here it serves no purpose whatsoever. It doesn't advance the plot or illuminate character, it simply makes an unpleasant comment even more unpleasant, and it could have been omitted entirely without any detrimental effect on the movie.With some promotion, this movie could have been rather more successful than it was, albeit it came on the heels of what might have appeared to be similar epidemic-type stories. Perhaps Heinlein's time in movies is still to come.