The original version of this movie had some of the most embarrassing special effects in history (example: dressing little kids as soldiers so the aliens they're fighting will look big) but it was corny mainly because of limitations and shit. This version is corny solely due to incompetence. The story is about Martians turning folks into pod people, but for pod people they aren't very consistent. Some of them act like robots and do weird crap that gives them away immediately (like eating raw meat), while others act relatively normal and even break out the proper slang and shit. I suppose it's possible that some of the aliens took their Acting for Beginners and Earth Customs 101 classes more seriously than others, but if you're trying to pull off an under-the-radar invasion of the Earth wouldn't you make sure that everyone assigned to the first wave down had at least a B+ average? This flick does have a couple of things going for it - the monsters look cool enough, and there is one creepy bit where the pod-person dad pours breath mints into his coffee and his son thinks he's being silly, then gets scared when he realizes he's not - but for the most part it's just dumb, and it doesn't help that the main kid is one of the worst child actors in history. I wonder whose dick he sucked to get this gig? Plus he does way too much shit that no one would actually do, like following his possessed teacher into a mysterious alien hell-tunnel in an attempt to figure out what's going on. Don't get me wrong, if I was in his shoes I'd want to know what was going on too, and you can rest assured I'd be weighing all the possibilities as I was driving in the opposite direction at 90 miles per.