The Invaders (1995)




I really enjoyed Mario Yedidia in Under Wraps (1997) and it got me thinking that about a sci-fi film from back in the nineties with Scott Bakula called The Invaders (1995), a made-for-tv mini-series.

I remembered that I have this film on an old archive drive.  It took me hours to find the old drive.  I haven't used this equipment in a long time so I wasn't sure that it stilled worked.  But I plugged the drive into the deck and Wow!  What a great sci-fi film!  It was in SD and not the best quality, but we were riveted watching the film.

Mario Yedidia was fantastic in the film as the son of Noland Wood.

The main characters in the film are Nolan Wood (played by Scott Bakula) and Ellen Garza (played by Elizabeth Pena), so they have the most screen time.  But Mario Yedidia has lots of screen time and really shines through in the film.  Quite a long film at 148 minutes.  It was a pilot for a television series that was unfortunately not picked up.  A tragedy. . .

Scott Bakula has a very laid back, relaxed way of acting.  And all the aliens in the film are laid back to the point of almost being emotionless.  The aliens never get excited and that's what makes them so scary because they don't seem in the least bit worried about taking over the world.

Poor Kyle (played by Mario Yedidia) is right in the epicenter of the alien invasion.  His father is being chased by the police and by the aliens.  Kyle is surrounded by aliens who don't seem to see him as a threat.  He is exasperated trying to get someone to believe him about the aliens and it's almost as if the aliens are taunting him.  Mario delivers a powerful performance.  In fact his character stays ramped-up for most of the film.  He's like a little tiger.  Carlos (played by Raoul Trujillo) found that out the hard way in one of the scenes.   

And one of the best things about the film is that they cast Mario Yedidia as the ten-year-old son of Nolan.  And Mario was in fact ten years old.  There's just always something that seems off when they cast a older actor to play a younger character.  But in this case it was fantastic!  Mario acted just like a ten-year-old would act, because he was.

An excellent performance by Richard Thomas too.  One of the best roles I've seen him in.

Highly Recommended!



(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

I found a 90 min. version of this movie on YT.
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

bowser wrote on 29. Nov 2014 at 14:58:

I found Under Wraps on YT today, its waiting for me to view!