The Invader
The Invader
| 12 September 1997 (USA)
The Invader Trailers

A good alien from a dying race must impregnate an Earth woman to avoid extinction of his race. A bad alien whose race helped wipe out good alien's race doesn't want to see this happen.

Reviews
Manthast Absolutely amazing
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
zee 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.
crymygenic2 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.
zdac Here we are: two travelers from a distant futuristic world arrive on earth... one is on a desperate mission to preserve a life, another is an inhuman killing machine determined to eliminate the woman who will give birth to the saviour of an entire race.So what could we call this killing machine? It's almost like he's some kind of destroyer, or eradicator... sort of like an exterminator or something. What's the word I'm looking for... something that -terminates- things? Hmmmm....Anyway, the protector (who swiftly doffs the white tunic he stole from Luke Skywalker in favour of local clothing) finds the young woman first and impregnates her with a future-born hero-to-be. The evil uhhhh... "exterminator" kills some rednecks and steals their guns and clothes, then attempts to locate the woman by visiting her workplace and asking around by looking menacingly into people's eyes and repeating her name threateningly.Then begins a desperate race for survival as the seemingly deathless and unstoppable "exterminator" pursues the couple across the countryside. At some point he may acquire boots and a motorcycle, but I'm not sure.Perhaps, in an exciting finale, he will attempt to crush them under the wheels of an enormous tanker truck full of... acid. Then the truck will crash. They will be saved... but no! He will then re-emerge, as strong as ever. He will kill the protector and pursue the girl into a meat packing plant, where in a terrifying finish, he is pushed into a large piece of industrial chopping machinery, and destroyed once and for all.But maybe I'm extrapolating too much... after all, I did stop watching this movie after Mr. Protector magically impregnates Sean Young by kissing her at a bar, then tells her the child will be born in 3 days. The costumes and effects are great in this movie... I loved them the first time I saw them on Star Trek: Next Generation too! Sean Young does another great turn as an unemotive Replicant, and career sweat-hog Stephen Baldwin is also on board as Young's Fat Cop Boyfriend. Not sure where he fits into the plot though... maybe he's an import from a different James Cameron movie?
willywants "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.