This movie could have been a good movie, it had some potential: the presence of Donald Sutherland, Will Patton and the sexy Julie Warner. There are a few good scenes but, overall, the movie is a failure. If you have some cinematic culture, not too much, you're gonna give me right. See it and you'll convince yourself if I'm right or not.

It looks like a UFO has landed in a small Iowa farm town. A top-secret US government investigative team from the "Office of Scientific Central Intelligence" goes out to investigate. The three stars are: limping leader Donald Sutherland (as Andrew Nivens), his handsome son and partner Eric Thal (as Sam Nivens) and sexy alien biologist Julie Warner (as Mary Sefton). They are about to conclude the whole thing was a teenagers' hoax, but Ms. Warner realizes aliens have landed. The reason, according to Warner, is that no males on the scene have noticed her arousing figure or tried to look down her unbuttoned blouse. You can almost hear her say, "Don't look at that alien spaceship, dammit, look down my shirt!"...Now, these aliens attach themselves to your back (your spinal column, specifically) and they multiply quickly. The way to see if someone has been "infected" is to order the person to, "Take off your shirt!" Since this trick works, we're left wondering why most people in the cast are allowed to keep their backs covered. Most viewers would not protest Warner and Mr. Thal acting without their shirts (Thal goes without pants, too). If you don't mind wondering about plot confusions and contrivances like that, you could do worse than Stuart Orme's vision of Robert A. Heinlein's science-fiction novel. Thal and Warner are an attractive couple and Mr. Sutherland is a classic performer who can improve movies by simply being there.****** The Puppet Masters (10/21/94) Stuart Orme ~ Eric Thal, Julie Warner, Donald Sutherland, Keith David

While "The Puppet Masters" is generally an entertaining movie with a good pace going for it, the simple fact is that it's much too belated an official adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel. We've seen other, similar stories since, including of course "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (although the Heinlein novel actually preceded the Jack Finney book of "Body Snatchers"). The presentation is definitely competent if not inspired. The creatures themselves are fairly cool, and visuals (specifically, the hive interior) are solid, and the script (credited to Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, and David S. Goyer) is fairly intelligent, but the direction (by Stuart Orme) is nondescript. The music is generic stuff, as well.It's an alien invasion tale of starfish shaped slugs that land on Earth, attach themselves to the backs of humans, and control their actions. It doesn't take long for an infection (which starts in rural Iowa) to spread and spread. The man in charge of handling the crisis is Andrew Nivens (an amusing Donald Sutherland, who performs with wit and style), who heads up a covert agency that is an offshoot of the C.I.A. and which deals with "scientific intelligence". Also involved is Andrews' special agent son Sam (Eric Thal) and a scientist (the irresistibly cute Julie Warner) who specializes in theorizing about alien anatomy, believe it or not!The story isn't a bad one but just isn't that meaty; I'm told that, as is so often the case, that the book is a superior work of fiction. The filmmakers do their best to keep us interested in the characters, putting each of them in peril. The stars do good work (this wouldn't work as well were it not for Sutherland), and are well supported by a rich variety of top character actors and familiar faces: Keith David, Will Patton, Richard Belzer, Tom Mason, Yaphet Kotto, Gerry Bamman, Sam Anderson, Marshall Bell, Benjamin Mouton, Andrew Robinson, and Dale Dye (some of them, however, get no more than a few lines).Never boring but never that exciting, either, this does fall victim to the "more than one ending" cliché but does have its good moments too. Best recommended to undemanding fans of the genre.Six out of 10.

OK, how many movies have there been about aliens coming to earth and possessing people? "The Puppet Masters" doesn't seem like much that we haven't seen before; specifically, it looks like a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Still, Donald Sutherland makes the most of his role as a really creepy weirdo. It's just that the movie as a whole doesn't offer anything new. Sutherland, plus Eric Thal, Julie Warner, Keith David, Will Patton, Richard Belzer and Yaphet Kotto all pass in a middling movie.In the thick of everything, you gotta admit that those slugs were pretty nasty-looking.