Director Philip Kaufman and writer WD Richter wittily update Don Seigel's 1956 classic by replacing the simple contrast between rational 'pod' people and emotional humans with the more complex idea that urban alienation makes it virtually impossible to distinguish between pods and people.
Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is interested when several of his friends suggest that their close relatives have some how 'changed' but, when later questioned about their anxieties, they themselves seem to be 'different'.
Realising something is wrong, Bennell has his worst suspicions confirmed when he witnesses an attempted 'replacement' and realises that his friends have been replaced by replicas - and he may well be next.
In a playful homage to the original film, Kevin McCarthy reprises his role as the hero of that film, still desperately trying to inform the world of the danger of the pods. Even more ironically, Don Siegel himself (director of the original movie) has a cameo role as the cabbie (and pod) who takes the fleeing Sutherland and Adams out of the city.
Film
(1978) 
(5 Star)
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