This second attempt at a Body Snatchers movie may feature the silliest protagonist in science-fiction history: Donald Sutherland’s over-zealous San Francisco health inspector (for his entrance, he triumphantly identifies rat droppings in a pot of soup.) Such silliness – as well as Philip Kaufman’s ostentatious direction – undermines the insidious chill of the story’s conceit: that aliens have taken over the minds of our loved ones, turning them into compliant automatons. I’ll give the movie credit for a great shocker ending, though. That single scene, more than anything that comes before it, has given the picture a classic reputation it doesn’t really deserve.
