Impostor (film)
Encyclopedia
Impostor is a 2002 American science fiction film based upon a short story of the same name
, written by Philip K. Dick
in 1953.
. A totalitarian global military government
is established shortly thereafter to wage the war effort.
The film follows Spencer Olham (Gary Sinise
)--a top-secret government weapons designer who is arrested by the government on suspicion of being a replicant created by the hostile aliens. The replicants are perfect copies of humans complete with memories--they do not know that they are a replicant--and carry within their chests a small organic nuclear bomb. The government discovered an alien transmission which stated that Olham's replicant was to assassinate the Chancellor of Earth when he came into contact with her.
Olham manages to escape the government forces who captured him, just before they were going to cut his heart out to see if it contains a bomb, but is eventually re-captured in a forest near an alien crash site. Inside the ship, the corpse of the real Olham is discovered. At that moment, the detonation sequence of the replicant-Olham engages and the alien plan to assassinate the Chancellor fails.
story "The Last Question
" by Bryan Singer
and Donald A. Wollheim's
story "Mimic" by Matthew Robbins
. "Mimic" had already been adapted into a film of the same name
, but with a different script.
The short was originally written by Scott Rosenberg
, with revisions by Mark Protosevich
and Caroline Case. When it was decided to expand the short into a feature-length film, additional scenes were written by Richard Jeffries, Ehren Kruger
, and David Twohy
.
Burn areas in Running Springs, California
, were used to create the space craft crash site. Sets were constructed in Angeles National Forest
and in numerous areas around Los Angeles
. Most of the interiors were built on stage in Manhattan Beach, including a two-story hospital and 3-story pharmacy, and a commuter transport station with articulated commuter "bugs".
The movie was made on an estimated $40 million budget.
gives the film a score of 21% based on 91 reviews.
Metacritic
gives the film a score of 33% based on 26 reviews.
James Berardinelli
of ReelViews gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), saying "there are a few moderately diverting subplots and the storyline eventually gets somewhere," but added that "Impostor wears out its welcome by the half-hour mark, and doesn't do anything to stir things up until the climax. You could spend the entire midsection of this movie in the bathroom and not miss much."
William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
gave the film a mildly positive review, praising lead actor Gary Sinise's ability to "hold the film together and provide a strong, sympathetic human focus. The movie's atmosphere has a very definite Blade Runner
feel."
Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide
gave the film three stars out of four, saying it packed "a real emotional wallop," but suggested that it would have worked better as the 40-minute short film it was originally intended to be.
Keith Phipps of The Onion
's A.V. Club
gave the film a negative review, saying that "it essentially uses the setup of [the story] as a bookend to one long, dull chase scene."
Robert Koehler of Variety
also criticized the film, calling it "a stubbornly unexciting ride into the near future."
Impostor (short story)
"Impostor" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Astounding magazine in June, 1953. Impostor, a feature film based on the story, was released in 2002 starring Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe and Vincent D'Onofrio...
, written by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
in 1953.
Plot
The movie takes place in the year 2079. Forty-five years earlier, Earth was attacked by a hostile alien civilization from Alpha CentauriAlpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
. A totalitarian global military government
Military government
Military government can refer to conditions under either Military occupation, or Military dictatorship.-Military Government:Military government is the form of administration by which an occupying power exercises governmental authority over occupied territory.The Hague Conventions of 1907 specify...
is established shortly thereafter to wage the war effort.
The film follows Spencer Olham (Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
)--a top-secret government weapons designer who is arrested by the government on suspicion of being a replicant created by the hostile aliens. The replicants are perfect copies of humans complete with memories--they do not know that they are a replicant--and carry within their chests a small organic nuclear bomb. The government discovered an alien transmission which stated that Olham's replicant was to assassinate the Chancellor of Earth when he came into contact with her.
Olham manages to escape the government forces who captured him, just before they were going to cut his heart out to see if it contains a bomb, but is eventually re-captured in a forest near an alien crash site. Inside the ship, the corpse of the real Olham is discovered. At that moment, the detonation sequence of the replicant-Olham engages and the alien plan to assassinate the Chancellor fails.
Cast
- Gary SiniseGary SiniseGary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
as Spencer Olham - Madeleine StoweMadeleine StoweMadeleine Mora Stowe is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in films such as Stakeout, Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, and We Were Soldiers...
as Maya Olham - Vincent D'OnofrioVincent D'OnofrioVincent Phillip D'Onofrio is an American actor, director, film producer, writer, and singer. Often referred to as an actor's actor, his work as a character actor has earned him the nickname of "Human Chameleon"...
as Hathaway - Tony ShalhoubTony ShalhoubAnthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub is an American actor of Lebanese descent. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in Monk...
as Nelson Gittes - Tim GuineeTim GuineeTimothy S. "Tim" Guinee is an American stage, television, and feature film actor.-Life and career:Guinee, who has two brothers and two sisters, was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Illinois and Texas....
as Dr. Carone - Mekhi PhiferMekhi PhiferMekhi Thira Phifer is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile...
as Cale - Gary DourdanGary DourdanGary Robert Dourdan is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Warrick Brown on the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.-Early years:...
as Captain Burke - Lindsay CrouseLindsay Crouse-Early life:Crouse was born in New York City, the daughter of Anna and Russel Crouse, a playwright. Her full name—Lindsay Ann Crouse—is an intentional tribute to the Broadway writing partnership of Lindsay and Crouse. Her father and his writing partner, Howard Lindsay, wrote much of...
as Chancellor - Elizabeth PenaElizabeth PeñaElizabeth Peña is an American actress and the daughter of a theater-company co-founder, who has also compiled experience as a television director in her own right.-Early life:...
as Midwife - Shane BrollyShane BrollyShane R Brolly is an Northern Irish actor, most known for his role as Kraven in Underworld.- Biography :Brolly was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and comes from a family of Irish actors, although he's done most of his film work in the US.He has a brother Clark, and a sister Kathy. He started...
as Lt. Burrows - Golden BrooksGolden BrooksGolden Ameda Brooks is an American actress. She is best known for her nine-year role as Maya Wilkes on the UPN/CW comedy Girlfriends.-Biography:...
as Cale's Sister - Ted KingTed KingTheodore William King is an American actor, formally credited as T.W. King.-Personal life:In September 2008 King married his girlfriend Maya Rodwell, with whom he became engaged the year before...
as RMR Operator - Rachel LuttrellRachel LuttrellRachel Luttrell is an actress best known for her role as Teyla Emmagan, an Athosian warrior leader on Stargate Atlantis.-Early life:...
as Scan Room Nurse
Production
The film adaptation was originally planned to be one segment of a three-part science fiction anthology film titled Light Years, but was the only segment filmed before the project fell apart. The other shorts were to be adaptations of Isaac Asimov'sIsaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
story "The Last Question
The Last Question
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and was reprinted in the collections Nine Tomorrows , The Best of Isaac Asimov , Robot Dreams , the retrospective Opus 100 , and in Isaac Asimov: The...
" by Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
and Donald A. Wollheim's
Donald A. Wollheim
Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction ' editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell....
story "Mimic" by Matthew Robbins
Matthew Robbins (screenwriter)
Matthew Robbins is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is good friends with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Guillermo Del Toro and Walter Murch and has had cameo appearances in THX 1138 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind...
. "Mimic" had already been adapted into a film of the same name
Mimic (film)
Mimic is an American science fiction horror film, with elements of a slasher film, released in 1997. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, the script was inspired by a short story of the same name by Donald A. Wollheim. Mimic, whose U.S...
, but with a different script.
The short was originally written by Scott Rosenberg
Scott Rosenberg
Scott Rosenberg is an American actor, screenwriter and film producer.- Biography :Born in Needham, Massachusetts in 1963, Rosenberg received a Bachelor's Degree from Boston University. He earned his MFA from UCLA...
, with revisions by Mark Protosevich
Mark Protosevich
Mark Protosevich is an American screenwriter currently under contract with Warner Bros.Protosevich was born in Chicago, Illinois.-Filmography:*The Cell *Poseidon*I Am Legend*Thor...
and Caroline Case. When it was decided to expand the short into a feature-length film, additional scenes were written by Richard Jeffries, Ehren Kruger
Ehren Kruger
-Life and career:Kruger was raised in Alexandria, Virginia, and attended college at New York University. He attended the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, graduating in 1990....
, and David Twohy
David Twohy
David Neil Twohy is an American film director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Twohy was born in Los Angeles County, California...
.
Burn areas in Running Springs, California
Running Springs, California
Running Springs is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 4,862 at the 2010 census, down from 5,125 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Running Springs is located at ....
, were used to create the space craft crash site. Sets were constructed in Angeles National Forest
Angeles National Forest
The Angeles National Forest of the U.S. National Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, southern California. It was established on July 1, 1908, incorporating the first San Bernardino National Forest and parts of the former Santa Barbara and San Gabriel...
and in numerous areas around Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Most of the interiors were built on stage in Manhattan Beach, including a two-story hospital and 3-story pharmacy, and a commuter transport station with articulated commuter "bugs".
The movie was made on an estimated $40 million budget.
Critical response
Impostor received poor to average and few positive reviews from critics. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gives the film a score of 21% based on 91 reviews.
Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
gives the film a score of 33% based on 26 reviews.
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
of ReelViews gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), saying "there are a few moderately diverting subplots and the storyline eventually gets somewhere," but added that "Impostor wears out its welcome by the half-hour mark, and doesn't do anything to stir things up until the climax. You could spend the entire midsection of this movie in the bathroom and not miss much."
William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
gave the film a mildly positive review, praising lead actor Gary Sinise's ability to "hold the film together and provide a strong, sympathetic human focus. The movie's atmosphere has a very definite Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
feel."
Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
gave the film three stars out of four, saying it packed "a real emotional wallop," but suggested that it would have worked better as the 40-minute short film it was originally intended to be.
Keith Phipps of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
's A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the film a negative review, saying that "it essentially uses the setup of [the story] as a bookend to one long, dull chase scene."
Robert Koehler of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
also criticized the film, calling it "a stubbornly unexciting ride into the near future."