Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

gavin6942 In this remake of the classic 1950s science fiction tale, a boy (Hunter Carson) tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher (Louise Fletcher) and other townspeople.This film has an all-star cast and crew: director Tobe Hooper, writer Dan O'Bannon, composer Christopher Young, actress Karen Black, and special effects guru Stan Winston. Say what you will, but the film has some of the finest people involved.The film lost money and received generally negative reviews. Time Out wrote, "whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs." Paul Corupe of Rue Morgue also comes down hard on the film, saying "Hooper overloads the remake with outrageous FX, excessively detailed sets and convoluted explanations." In short, he says the film "is unsatisfying, little more than a series of chase sequences" and "surprisingly clunky creatures that look like they were lifted from Jim Henson's reject pile."The film is, indeed, heavily reliant on Winston's creatures, and it is a bit silly or campy more often than suspenseful or scary. A great film it is not. But this also depends on who the audience is: if this is geared towards children (which may be the case), perhaps it works best being silly and without too much terror.

AaronCapenBanner Remake of the overrated 1953 film is even worse. It has the same basic plot of young boy who witnesses a spaceship land in a nearby sand pit, and how the adults, starting with his parents, are taken over in the first step toward invasion, and of course the boy(along with the eventual help of the military) are the only ones to stop these martian invaders.Pointless remake offers more elaborate monsters, but they still look awful, and film is too stupid and unpleasant to work, with a really crass ending that renders the whole film moot. Forget this junk!

BrickNash I'm not a fan of remakes, not at all. I don't see why films that were good in the first place need to be 'updated'. Perhaps a bad film with a nice idea would be worthy but most remakes, especially these days are just cashing in on the success of the original and usually doing a bad job to boot.Invaders From Mars is one of the most famous of the Classic 50's sci-fi films along with Forbidden Planet and War Of The Worlds. It's certainly the most disturbing of the era with paranoia and fear seen from a child's perspective along with some memorable imagery!The big surprise about this remake is that it's actually good. Really good in fact! Of course it's not perfect but it set out to do a task and in my eyes succeeded!I think one of the best things about the film is how it looks. The locations and sets are fantastic, the set of the alien space ship interior and tunnels are superb as are the locations such as the sand pit. This is all the more baffling when you consider that it's made by Canon, a company famous for uber cheap budgets and cutting corners but it certainly doesn't have that feel here. Being made in the 80's the film has that certain warmth to its feel that seemed to be present in films of that era. There is a remarkably strong Spielberg vibe to the whole film mixed in with a good does of John Carpenter from around the same era. Tobe Hooper does a great job with plenty of nice sweeping wide angles crossed with claustrophobic horror type shots and situations and some nice recreation of the iconic scenes of the 50's original such as the fence going over the hill. There are also plenty of snippets of trivia from the original film hidden here and there throughout the film which is a great tribute and obviously shows the film was made with love.Of course it's not perfect, the acting is hammy in parts which sort of ups the cheese value a little but on the whole it's pretty average and doesn't stray much into 'cringe' territory.A special mention and combined criticism must go to the Martian creatures themselves. Stan Winston's workshop created these beasts and although superbly made and animated they seems to not know whether to be scary or goofy, looking formidable with their huge teeth and grunts one might be scared stiff if they didn't look like a giant testicle from the side on.These are minor flaws though in a film that has so obviously been made with a ion for the subject.I love both versions of this film and I honestly think that more people should give it the credit that it is due!

ebiros2 A remake of 1953 classic. The movie is made by Canon International that had on and off successes with their movies. This is one of the off ones they made.The movie is about a boy witnessing the landing of a UFO at the back of his house. Then people of his town starts to change, their personalities taken over by the martians. He desperately tries to save his parents. His teacher helps him along the way.There's no atmosphere to this movie. The acting was bad and production crew really didn't know what the movie was all about despite that they had the 1953 classic to work off of. 1953 classic at least knew how to show the terror of one boy who is surrounded by the enemies, and how to cover for his inexperience as an actor by putting his innocence forward. This movie has no such considerations.Best this movie and watch the original 1953 classic which is a far better production.