THE PUPPET MASTERS
A film review by Paul Robinson
Copyright 1994 Paul Robinson
As a faithful translation of Heinlein's book, the movie is well nigh perfect in terms of translation to film, and I suspect Heinlein himself would appreciate how close to his original story the movie stays. The few times it does deviate is to make the film closer to reality here and now, e.g., as if the events shown in the movie really could happen today. The original book had human beings already possessing space flight to other places as well as a few other things which would not work today. Also, a couple of incidents in the book were eliminated to streamline the plot of the movie and make it more consistent with reality. A few items were left out which probably should have been covered, and might be (or were but were edited out) if the movie goes to video or gets a sequel.
As a translation of a book into a movie, it rates perhaps B+ or an A-. The translation is very good and the original story is very well carried across.
As a science fiction movie in and of itself, it unfortunately rates only a C. Possibly it needed some narration or some additional material to explain the opening; I felt that the way the opening of the film, including introducing the three main characters in the film, was a bit strained. If I hadn't already read the book more than once over the last ten years or so, I might have been a little bit lost.
I felt the treatment of the material was excellent, and unlike too many films involving extraterrestrial invaders, the "gore level" was toned down from what could be expected / has commonly been used for such films, only showing oozing material, blood or other gory items when it was necessary for plot development and story, unlike too many films that use gore to nauseate the audience and to substitute for a real story and a plot, this story realizes that the audience has an imagination and letting them realize what is happening (rather than showing them directly) is often more effective in a story than saturating the audience with goo.
I mentioned that I felt something was missing in the scenes involving the three main characters (Andrew, the head of the agency, played by Donald Sutherland; Mary the scientist; and Sam, Andrew's son). What I felt was also missing was the connection between Sam becoming contaminated by the invaders and his escaping the agency, which the connection wasn't made clearly. (A similar thing occurred in ALIENS where we are suddenly cut to the aftermath of an explosion but the cause of the explosion itself nor the reasoning behind it weren't explained.)
A couple more minutes of material in a couple of places could have made what was a fairly good film even better. Where the invaders came from, and whether there are more left, are not covered, as well as the final disposition of the original group in outer space.
In and of itself I can recommend the film. I suspect that with some minor and unimportant changes (dropping a couple of swear words) the film might have been able to get a PG-13 rating. (On the other hand, the producers may have felt this film should not be seen by unattended kids; however this film was much less gory and violent than the last year of the "War of the Worlds" TV show which started to "gore up" the show in a futile attempt to increase its ratings. There is some killing and torture in this film, but it is much less "gratuitous" as other films and most of which is well done in the context in which it occurs.)
I think that it's suitable for teenagers or anyone who saw JURASSIC PARK and didn't have nightmares. Take any of the Untouchables episodes and any of the later WAR OF THE WORLDS episodes and you have more gore and violence than appears in this movie.
The actors do an excellent job in this movie, and Donald Sutherland's portrayal of the essentially ruthless head of a government agency is very well done. It's "ruthless" in the sense that he will stop at nothing to get rid of the invaders; and it turns out that in the long run, they are fighting a war and his opinion was the correct one after all.
-- Paul Robinson - paul@tdr.com / tdarcos@MCIMail.com / tdarcos@access.digex.net
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