John Carpenter has made more bad movies than he's made good, but this would be a leading candidate for his very worst. Despite excellent photography and use of color on misty California coastal locations, despite a very good performance by Christopher Reeve, this reeks.
The script by David Himmelstein (etc.) repeats some of the main story points of the first film; every change from the original is not just a mistake, but a catastrophe, other than the shift to an American locale. First, we never know the origin of the children; a whispering shadow passes over Reeve at the beginning of the film, but that is, shall we say, less than illuminating regarding the origin of the children.
In the original, the children develop in the womb much faster than normal, and continue this accelerated aging after birth. No mention is made of this in Carpenter's version. In the original, it's clearly and explicitly demonstrated that the children have a shared mind--here we're simply told they do--there's very little evidence for this and some AGAINST this idea, as with David, the "good" kid among the Midwich children. (Speaking of children, although we're shown that the town has lots of regular kids, once the "dayout" children are born, we never see a single normal child again.)
Kirstie Alley is awful, but it's not entirely her fault; her part is all over the place, at first a scheming villain who later becomes semi-sympathetic. Just what she's doing in the story is never made clear. Nor is much of anything else. Thee were lots more women who could become pregnant in the opening scene than who eventually give birth. Bringing in a government representative serves the dopey function of suggesting a conspiracy without actually having to depict it. Killing Reeve's wife early on reduces his connection with the children, but there he is, still in the story.
This is a misbegotten mess.
The script by David Himmelstein (etc.) repeats some of the main story points of the first film; every change from the original is not just a mistake, but a catastrophe, other than the shift to an American locale. First, we never know the origin of the children; a whispering shadow passes over Reeve at the beginning of the film, but that is, shall we say, less than illuminating regarding the origin of the children.
In the original, the children develop in the womb much faster than normal, and continue this accelerated aging after birth. No mention is made of this in Carpenter's version. In the original, it's clearly and explicitly demonstrated that the children have a shared mind--here we're simply told they do--there's very little evidence for this and some AGAINST this idea, as with David, the "good" kid among the Midwich children. (Speaking of children, although we're shown that the town has lots of regular kids, once the "dayout" children are born, we never see a single normal child again.)
Kirstie Alley is awful, but it's not entirely her fault; her part is all over the place, at first a scheming villain who later becomes semi-sympathetic. Just what she's doing in the story is never made clear. Nor is much of anything else. Thee were lots more women who could become pregnant in the opening scene than who eventually give birth. Bringing in a government representative serves the dopey function of suggesting a conspiracy without actually having to depict it. Killing Reeve's wife early on reduces his connection with the children, but there he is, still in the story.
This is a misbegotten mess.