The Movie
Luke Perry (Beau) and Rebecca Gayheart (Cassy) star in Robin Cook's story as two college friends who find themselves in a rush against time to save the world. After discovering an odd black rock in a parking lot, left by a race of predatory aliens, a virus, otherwise dormant in the human species, is triggered. After touching the object, Beau develops severe flu-like symptoms. Soon Cassy and Beau find the strange virus is spreading at an alarming rate making them hungry to experience the world while mutating them into an alien species! Becoming servants to the alien race, they try to resist the desire to turn over the Earth to them. A few uninfected survivors lead by Dr. Miller (Kim Cattrall) only hope is to reach a secret government germ warfare base that holds the antidote before the world is overrun by extraterrestrials and the portal to other worlds is opened.

Director Armand Mastroianni (The Dead Zone), producer Jeffrey Morton (Firestarter 2: Rekindled) and screenwriter Rockne S. O'Bannon combine their TV-only experience to create a most unforgettable rendition of Robin Cooks popular novel. For some reason, Robin has had great trouble in finding the right people to capture, in meaningful fashion, the magic that's contained in his written word. Unfortunately, history repeats itself in "Invasion" (1997), coming across as a rehash of predecessors such as "Body Snatchers" and "V." Due in part to it's being a made-for-TV mini-series, the compilation on DVD is slow in developing and is further handicapped by lackluster acting and a excruciatingly shallow script resulting in a pretty ho-hum experience overall.

This reinforces my belief that if you want to read a book that is the source of a movie, it's better read it before seeing the movie. Your mind forms the characters and the world surrounding the story rather than the movie doing that for you. If it's a good experience, you may be encouraged to see the movie. The danger in doing it in reverse is you see a piece like this and have no interest in reading the book, which, in this case, would be a shame because it's a good read. If you skipped reading this book, then you will certainly want to skip viewing this movie.

DVD
Original format 1.33:1 made for TV mini-series, 175 minutes.

Video
Somewhat grainy, it appears just as it did on TV. Nothing special, quite average.

Audio
2.0 Dolby Surround.
The soundtrack is primarily synthetic with a spattering of female chorus, slightly akin to what you might hear in the "X-Files." Other than that, it is adequate for presentation on the DVD.

Menus
Static. Play/Scene Selection.

Extras
What extras. Zero.

Final Thoughts
If you have three hours to waste on something unimaginative with content you have probably seen elsewhere then here ya go. Otherwise, I'd skip this one and save those pennies for the better things out there.