Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 23
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 17
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 6
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 7,231
Robert A. Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters comes to the screen 43 years later. Sharp-eyed viewers will recognize similarities to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but Heinlein's book came first. Parasitic space aliens invade the Midwest, taking over the bodies of humans and manipulating these unfortunates to do their bidding. US security agent Donald Sutherland and his team of troubleshooters attempt to squash the extraterrestrial scheme before everyone in the world is turned into Howdy
Oct 21, 1994 Wide
Sep 3, 2002
All Critics (23) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (6) | Rotten (17) | DVD (2)
Only the most undiscriminating monster-pic buff will come away satisfied.
Top CriticA choppy, unsuspenseful succession of chases, melodramatic showdowns and routine special effects.
The Puppet Masters occasionally lives up to its reputation, but the delay between story conception and celluloid conversion has clearly wilted its power and potential.
Attempts at detailed characterization don't work particularly well, and there's a love story that feels as forced as it is superfluous - although even that isn't as unnecessary as the film's final ten minutes.
Despite accomplished special effects and a coolly intelligent script, this paranoid thriller never follows through on its eerie promise.
...generally as far-fetched and overwrought as its 1950s sci-fi brethren.
Lacked suspense.
There's no suspense (ETs rampage from the word go); no frissons (loud hailers telegraph the shocks); and it's insufficiently bright to be an hommage.
About as nerve-wracking as a warm bath.
Not bad if you can get past the "Invasion of the Plot Snatchers" set-up.
its story logic is solid, its science is satisfying and its thrills are nerve-wracking
Some movies with great potential can be ruined or denied their greatness by a single detail.
The special effects are low-budget, but effective. The creatures are disgustingly realistic.
Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel comes to the screen in a film that takes little time away from the main plot to develop its characters, but does strike home with a story of a hard-fought battle with a fairly alien and devious enemy.
This movie is so wonderfully archaic and reminiscent of 1950s alien invasion stories that one cannot help but like it -- despite rather lacklustre directing.
Conspiracy sci-fi in which the human race is being infiltrated by aliens who can control the bodies of their human victims. On their trail are two FBI agents, one male, one female. One is a believer, the other a sceptic. Any of this sound familiar...? Yes, it's a total rip off of the X-Files, but it's adequately done,
May 24, 2007
Super Reviewer
A captivating paraniod sci-fi thriller well directed by Stuart Orme, that features a outstanding lead star performance by Donald Sutherland, as Andrew Nivens the shrewd, sardonic head of a secret top-level U.S. Security Agency who leads his team consisting of agent Sam Nivens his disaffected son, Dr. Mary Sefton a
October 2, 2010Super Reviewer
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