Donald Sutherland: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
2. Matthew Bennell - Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
If ever a case needed to be put forward to support the idea that film remakes aren't always a bad idea, then Invasion Of The Body Snatchers would most certainly be proof that good ones do exist. A remake of the 1956 film of the same name, Philip Kaufman's adaptation of the original film was almost universally praised for its cast, innovative film techniques and expanded subject matter. While the film features an all-star cast of actors (most notably Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy), it's Sutherland's performance (and trademark 70s hair) that pushes the film's narrative forward. Sutherland's character, Matthew Bennell, is a health inspector that slowly comes to the realisation that the friends, loved ones and population around him are slowly being copied by an extraterrestrial race of gelatinous blobs. As more and more people start to exhibit strange behavioural patterns, Bennell accepts that he has to escape and gathers the last real humans together and legs it out of town. Sutherland's performance is not only relatable, but believable. His reaction to the terrifying events that unfold before his very eyes (people crumbling to dust to name just one) and portrayal of a character losing hope of survival are all so brilliantly personified purely through his facial reactions. And let's not forget the final scene...even thinking about it still makes us shiver.
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
