the faculty

I have to confess I found this rather disappointing.

I'd heard that it was quite good, but I actually found it really derivative and therefore rather unoriginal.  It was a bit like somebody had compiled together all the good alien movies they'd ever seen and thought that the melded together thing would therefore be good.

Trouble is that you just end up with a diluted version of those original films.  Also, generally, a lot of the good alien films are actually based on books.  The film tries to acknowledge this debt, but actually just ends up making it obvious how lacking this film is.

This referencing is achieved by having a character who is a science fiction nerd who is into all the classic science fiction films - in this case, alien films being of most reference (Body Snatcher's, Puppet Master's).  However, what this also means is you have a rather stereotypical character who lacks any real motivation or defining character, other than being a misfit SF nerd.

And this is the film's real problem - the characters are all basically horrible stereotypes.  You've got the wide-eyed new girl, the genius who, unchallenged by academia is a mischief maker, the jock who's misunderstood.  It's all just the wrong side of cliché.  A bit more exploration of these characters would really have helped.

The good side of the film is the slow takeover by the aliens, which, although very much in a bodysnatcher's vein is reasonably well done.  However, even here there are real problems - what are the aliens?  Why are they doing this?  How do they do it?

There's a vague hint that once taken over the people are happier, but the film also fails to really explore this.  And this is one of the most frustrating things about it - it manages to ditch the parts of these types of alien movies that make them quirky or interesting or that make you think.

The aliens basically just take over because that's what they do and they need beating.

The thing about the film that is amusing is seeing a lot of young actors that have gone on to bigger and better things.  You've got Josh Hartnett and Elijah Wood, for example.  And the performances are probably the highlight of the film.