Epidemia Mortal

Robin Cook's Invasion of 1997 is a product of its time. By today's standards, the miniseries is rather bland. However, it is still worth watching.

Do not let the full-screen format get in your way.

The title of the program gives away the full story. Starting with a pebble in a parking lot which changes Beau Stark's (Luke Perry) plans, personality, and sexual prowess. Can his girl (Rebecca Gayheart) manage the new Beau, or will she need the skills of Dr. Sheila Moran (Kim Cattrall) to correct Beau's ambitions before it is too late for the rest of us?

We have plenty of opportunities to kibitz with "don't do that," and "stay in the car."

In Phoenix, the social assistant Beau Stark (Luke Perry) and the substitute teacher Cassy Winslow (Rebecca Gayheart) live together and are in love with each other and Beau proposes to marry her. Their best friend, the medical student Pitt Henderson (Christopher Orr) is happy with the news. When Beau returns to his car, he sees a black stone that felt from the sky and when he touches it, he feels bad in a sort of influenza. When other black stones fall from the sky, there is an epidemic of influenza in Phoenix and Dr. Sheila Moran (Kim Cattrall) tries to convince his director to summon the CDC, but he says that it is not necessary. Soon Beau changes his behavior and Cassy tells Pitt. Their further investigation shows that RH- people have stranger reaction after touching the black stone that activates a latent virus in the humans that mutates them into an alien breed. Now Sheila, Cassy, Pitt and a few other humans are trying to find an antibody to save the human race. But no one can be trusted.

"Invasion" is an entertaining sci-fi, with a storyline that recalls "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Stargate". In 1997, it was an underrated film, but re-watching in the present days, the viewer realizes that the story has not aged and the special effects and make-up are still good. Unfortunately, this film was only released on VHS in Brazil. It is also great to see the gorgeous Rebecca Gayheart and Kim Cattrall very young. The conclusion is failed since other countries have been also invaded and the airborne gas is only used in Phoenix. Maybe the third episode would provide a better conclusion to the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Epidemia Mortal" ("Deadly Epidemic")

A virus, presumably of extraterrestrial origin, takes over human beings.

By the numbers made-for-tv movie travels down well-known territory with few redeeming virtues. The familiar story is padded with mumbo jumbo galore and cheesy special effects. Even though the acting by most of the cast is decent, there is little else to be remembered.

Recommended only to desperate diehards craving for their sci-fi daily shot!!! With due respect to the canine breeds, skip this dog of a movie and go for the real thing. Rent out Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Village of the Damned and the underrated Independence Day or any of those wonderful campy sci-fi B-movies of the 50's... and treat yourself to a pleasurable Saturday afternoon and don't forget the right words: Klaatu barada nikto!

Rating: 2/10.because of beautiful locations.

I didn't see this miniseries in its original run in 1997, but watched it last week in a rerun on the SCIFI channel because of Robin's Cook's involvement. All of his work (books, screenplays, miniseries) has been consistently good. (Remember "Coma"?). This one was no different. I thought it was an interesting story, played seriously by a better than average cast. Luke Perry plays the leading man, the first to be infected by the alien virus, and his girlfriend (the extremely cute Rebecca Gayheart) who becomes the one to try to save him from it with the help of a molecular biologist in the person of Kim Catrall. As I enjoy most 'virus' type movies (Outbreak, The Stand), I enjoyed this one, too. I give it a 9 out of 10 for a TV miniseries.

I only checked this out because the score was done by Don Davis, composer for the first 3 Matrix movies. You can definitely hear some proto-Matrix music here and it really lifts the material.

Expecting this to be a slog, it turned out to be pretty damn engaging, somewhat reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and V (the original miniseries). What really amazed me is that they created a fairly decent alien invasion story with a TV budget. There are also deaths/conversions aplenty for costars, which ups the ante suspense-wise. Don't go in expecting Arrival or Independence Day, and I think it will be worth a slow night's watch.