NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Heathcliff Probably produced following the smash success of The X Files, The Puppet Masters is a pretty solid slice of alien invasion pulp fiction. The casting is good, with Eric Thal and Julie Warner proving to be charming enough stand-ins for Mulder and Scully. Elsewhere, sci-fi genre fans may appreciate the appearances of Yaphet Kotto (Alien), Keith David (The Thing) and of course the great Donald Sutherland (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers).Behind the camera, it's an unusually British affair with director Stuart Orme, cinematographer Clive Tickner, and composer Colin Towns all heralding from the UK. They do nice work - Orme provides a tense and pacey first half, Tickner's very fine work lends a stylish visual sheen, and Towns' music is lushly complex.However, although it starts out well, the flick loses some energy and traction around the middle and doesn't get it back. Its potential begins to slip away and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe budget/script cuts. The last third in particular, with its under-powered action set-pieces and somewhat perfunctory ending, suggests that the film had hit the glass ceiling of its production resources... or perhaps even its creators' full interest.Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable sci-fi thriller for a good part of its running time. Might make a nice viewing companion with The Hidden (1987) or certainly any number of old X Files episodes!

Shawn Watson 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.

shmobbie I have never read the novel this was movie was based on, or any of his other works for that matter, so I have nothing to compare this film to. I also haven't seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (shame on me). With that said, I have one question: Why the HELL wouldn't you just invent some sort of kevlar armor that attaches to the back and neck in a comfortable fashion? You would think at least the armed forces dudes would have thought about it.. I mean c'mon boys. Anyway, I thought this was entertaining enough for a boring Tuesday afternoon. I've wanted to see this since when it was released and I was much younger and I'm glad I finally have. Fun concept.

Lee Eisenberg OK, how many movies have there been about aliens coming to earth and possessing people? "The Puppet Masters" doesn't seem like much that we haven't seen before; specifically, it looks like a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Still, Donald Sutherland makes the most of his role as a really creepy weirdo. It's just that the movie as a whole doesn't offer anything new. Sutherland, plus Eric Thal, Julie Warner, Keith David, Will Patton, Richard Belzer and Yaphet Kotto all pass in a middling movie.In the thick of everything, you gotta admit that those slugs were pretty nasty-looking.