The Invasion is part-Body Snatcher flick, part-treatise on all things American, and two Brits, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, aim to show us the way. Carol Bennell (Kidman) begins to notice the strange behavior of those around her while her son Oliver spends the weekend with her estranged ex-husband (who we already know is infected.) We’ll later find out that the virus infecting humanity isn’t really dangerous… until you fall asleep.

Invited to a dinner in the midst of the epidemic, our good psychiatrist is invited by her scientist friend Ben (Craig) to a glamorous dinner, where the Russian ambassador attempts to bait her with comments about the truth. We find that our psychiatrist is as smart and thoughtful as we’d hope her to be: “When someone starts talking to me about the truth, I hear them telling me about themselves rather than about the world.”

“Can you give me a pill to make me see the world the way that you Americans see the world? Can you help me see Iraq or Darfur or New Orleans, the way you see the world?” He implies that a peaceful world would be one where humans ceased to be human, and were instead like animals. We know we’re being set up with dialogue that will be echoed in the plot of the movie, but the terror mounts as we see normal isn’t really normal.

It’s basically a zombie movie, a redressing of the Body Snatchers mode by Joel Silver—but the husband-wife showdown and the mother-son relationship certainly makes the dimension of the terror higher. I’m not much into zombie movies but I certainly found myself caring about the individuals involved—the zombies mantra about each individual human being interconnected, living in a world without suffering, poverty, or hate against another, because “in our world, there is no ‘other.’” Unfortunately, that applies to Oliver, who is immune, as well—he must be eliminated, because “other” can’t exist.

That’s socio-political commentary I’m sure, but it’s also criticism that can applied to the church as well: what happens when we assume the only right way is our way, that to be a Christian means you have to look just like me and that there’s no room for dialogue? Or worse, that if you don’t look like me, you don’t belong and you have to be “eliminated” or ostracized from the church?

Thankfully, this one ends differently than I Am Legend, but there’s still the interesting side note, or corollary, that the power in the blood—the immunity—occurs in those who are given the vaccine, and the power to fight. What we know is that the blood of Jesus means a world can exist where pain and anguish cease, and good can heal the world without an alien virus. It’s the sacrifice that sets us free, provides the antidote, conquers the heart—not mind control or vaccination, but the love of Jesus dying on the cross, and the grace of God providing the power over death.