

The Puppet Masters
A review by Joe Chamberlain

Starring Donald Sutherland; Eric Thal; Julie Warner; Keith David & Will
Patton

Donald Sutherland stars in this story of aliens trying to take over the
Earth. They have landed in a small town and they are taking over the bodies
of the town's folk by attaching themselves to their backs and sticking a
probe into their brains. Even worse, they are rapidly spreading to the
neighboring communities. So it's up to Andrew Nivens (Donald Sutherland) and
his son Sam (Eric Thal) to stop them before the entire United States ends up
as the puppets for these aliens. Also along for the ride for the required
amount of sex appeal is Julie Warner playing a brilliant scientist who
eventually falls for Sutherland's son.

Even in the brief overview I gave of this movie, you may be able to glean
that it is a formula film right from the opening credits. It's sad to say,
but I don't think that the writers had one original thought when they wrote
this movie. I can't think of a single plot point that I hadn't seen in some
other movie. Anything that was even the slightest bit original was so
predictable that you almost knew what was going to happen without even
giving it any thought. Having said all that, the writers did manage to use
some decent plot points from all of the movies that they had obviously
watched, so the movie wasn't a total disaster. It's just not something that
you should sit down with expecting to be overwhelmed by all of the
creatively ingenious ideas. Because it isn't going to happen.

The acting is passable at best, on all counts including Sutherland. In
Donald's defense, he didn't have a great deal of material to work with. He
was playing the uncaring S.O.B. in this movie, which is a role that he has
played many times before with much greater success. Julie Warner was also a
disappointment since I had been very impressed with her in Doc Hollywood.
The only others worth mentioning were Richard Belzer (Homicide: Life On The
Street), and his character only said a few dozen words. Keith David also had
a small role, but as usual, he made the most of it.

The Puppet Masters is just your typical cookie cutter horror / sci-fi flick.
There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it. But it was just good
enough to keep my interest through the whole movie. Although, I can't say
that I would rush out to watch it again any time in the near future.

5/10

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