The Invisible Man
Universal Pictures
Rated R for some strong bloody violence & language
Directed, Screenplay & Story by Leigh Whannell (Saw & Insidious)
Based on the novel by H. G. Wells
Stars: Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss (Us & The Handmaid’s Tale), SAG Award winner Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta Compton), Harriet Dyer (NBC’s The InBetween) & Storm Reid (HBO’s Euphoria)
In 1933, James Whale directed The Invisible Man & it was based on H. G. Wells novel. If you’re going into the 2020 version of The Invisible Man thinking it’s a “remake” of that one, stay home, don’t spend your money at the theatre to see this movie because the only things these two have in common are the title and the fact that there is an invisible man in the movie.
The basic premise of this one is a woman is in an abusive, controlling relationship, she leaves the man & he kills himself. Or does he? Surprisingly, he leaves her a large portion of his estate, which his brother Tom is the lawyer over, but strange things have already begun happening to her. He always made her feel like she was going crazy when he was alive, she’s starting to feel like that again & others are wondering that, too because she’s now telling people that he’s alive & stalking her.
Cecilia makes it her mission to prove that Adrian faked his death & she isn’t crazy. As she tries to do that, his reign of terror on her becomes more intense. The harder she tries to prove he’s “around”, the more people in her life pay the price.
I’m not one talk about cinematography or fancy things like that. I will tell you this, you do get to see the invisibility suit & it’s pretty cool! This isn’t an over the top, super heavy on the special effects looking movie. Obviously, there are special effects but it’s not the kind of movie you watch & the entire movie is shot on a green screen. It’s well done, it’s believable. The fight sequences when Cecilia is fighting invisible Adrian look decent. When she gets picked up off the floor, it’s convincing. Those are the kinds of effects I’m talking about. You even get the shimmery effect of invisible Adrian sometimes before you get to see the suit.
One thing I’m not a great fan of is the jump scare. I never did get the point of that. To me, if you have to go for a jump scare, you’re trying too hard. They went for that a couple of times here & I just didn’t think it was necessary. This had legs as a psychological thriller. Period. No reason to try to make it a horror flick with a needless jump scare. Also, the ending was painfully predictable in my opinion.
All in all, it was an enjoyable movie. Like I said in the beginning, if you’re expecting it to be anything like the 1933 version, you’ve got another thing coming. The Invisible Man is worth seeing if you’re a fan of the psychological thriller. Even if you’re a fan of the who-dun-it movies, you might want to see this. Granted I said the ending was predictable, but I never said anything about the middle…
