Skip to main content

The Invisible Man (2020) -- a review

Universal had been trying to jump-start its classic monster movies into a new ‘cinematic universe’ (hey, it worked for the Marvel Superhero movies, right?) for a while now, starting with a new version of Dracula that was pretty forgettable, and ending with a new version of the Mummy that was so bad--as well as being a big bomb at the box office--that it abruptly ended Universal’s attempt to create its ’Dark Universe.’ I thought this was a shame, because the Classic Universal Monsters--Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy (in a better film), and the Invisible Man--really deserve to have a comeback.


So I was very happy when Universal released a new version of The Invisible Man, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, a highly creative actor/writer/director who has given us the Saw films, as well as the Insidious series (he made his directing debut on the third Insidious film). The Invisible Man was also produced by Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse studio was responsible for a lot of horror films that aimed high and managed to hit their marks: Get Out, Us, the enjoyable 2018 Halloween sequel--as well as Betaal, the funky, but fun ‘zombies in India’ TV horror series on Netflix.


The last big reboot of the Invisible Man was Paul Verhoven’s The Hollow Man, featuring Kevin Bacon as the title character, a creep who became even creepier once he becomes invisible. Verhoven--who, along with Flesh + Blood and Robocop, also gave us the cinematic shit-fests that are Showgirls and Starship Troopers--takes a very lewd approach with the Hollow Man, his movie suggesting that the power of invisibility corrupts the person who is invisible, all while gleefully rubbing our noses in the awful behavior of the title character.


In sharp contrast, the invisible man of Leigh Whannell’s masterful new take is already a monster who abuses his wife, Cecilia. Unlike Verhoven’s Hollow Man, which pulls the audience uncomfortably along to witness the lead character’s shenanigans (and making them feel complicit), Whannell keeps us largely on the side of Cecilia by having us experience everything through her point of view. And when it slowly begins to dawn on Cecilia what she is really dealing with, she--as well as the viewer--faces the true horror of the situation: that this already bad situation with a murderous stalker who is obsessed with her is made even worse by the mind-numbing realization that he is invisible.


The 2020 Invisible Man is a far superior version of the classic tale. Making the invisibility aspect possible because of a special suit that uses a multitude of mini cameras that reflects light away from the wearer, the new Invisible Man eschews the hoary old trope of the invisible man needing to be nude--another aspect that The Hollow Man crudely took to new lows. The special suit also does away with the ‘affliction’ aspect of the invisibility. The story is no longer centered on finding a medical cure; instead we deal solely with the marvelous cat and mouse game that Cecilia is forced to play with her ex-husband when no one else will believe her story.


Elizabeth Moss is outstanding as Cecilia. She easily portrays her character’s vulnerability, as well as her growing strength, once Cecilia realizes that she can only depend on herself to survive. The Invisible Man is a fresh, intelligent turn that wisely updates the source material for a new age. And if The Invisible Man is truly the new spark of another cinematic universe, then I really hope that it catches fire, heralding in a smarter, more sophisticated universe that gives the Classic Universal Monsters the respect they so richly deserve. --SF

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Reacher Never Go Back -- a Review

I was first introduced to Jack Reacher through the Tom Cruise movie of the same name that was released back in 2012. I liked the movie well enough, despite a few nitpicks here and there--but I really enjoyed reading the novels by Lee Child. Jack Reacher was a former US Army officer who retires and becomes a drifter, roaming from state to state in the country that he fought so hard to protect. And Reacher is still protecting us, taking on a variety of villains, from backwoods mobsters to big-city terrorists from book to book. The stories in the books are well-told, with great attention paid to the smallest of details. I think of them as 1980s action films, only without being insulting to your intelligence. What a perfect series to adapt to movies, right? Well, Tom Cruise looks nothing like how Jack Reacher is described in the books. And while I thought the first Jack Reacher film was good, the second, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , is very badly flawed. Based on the JR novel of the sa...
Post a Comment
Read more

3 Body Problem

3 Body Problem , Netflix’s latest TV series, is loosely based on the first novel in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, by Chinese author Liu Cixin (who also wrote the book The Wandering Earth ). Simply put, it’s an alien invasion story, but one that’s a lot more sophisticated than your average ‘pew-pew-pew’ cliché-fest. For one thing, this series begins in the 1960s, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, which was the nationwide purge instigated within China by then-Chairman Mao to keep himself in power. A young woman named Ye Wenjie arises from the chaos to become a central figure in the overall story. The 3 Body Problem of this series’ name refers to a far-flung solar system that has three suns. Any planet within this tri-sun system would have a hard time of it, taking turns orbiting one belligerent sun after another, and it just so happens that the aliens who set their eyes on invading Earth--known as the San-Ti--come from this embattled world. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Holdovers -- a review

It’s always a joy to watch someone who’s a master at their work, whether it’s a musician, an artist, or an actor. Most great actors make it look easy--which is not to say that I think acting is an easy job. I know from personal experience that acting is very hard. It’s a skill that the talented make look very easy, and one of the most talented actors working today is Paul Giamatti. If you’ve watched some movies over the past few years, chances are very good that you’ve already seen Paul Giamatti. He was the jittery earthquake expert in San Andreas , the sympathetic police chief in The Illusionist , and as the titular John Adams (a part that got him the Emmy and a Golden Globe) in the 2008 HBO series of the same name. Recently, I saw Paul Giamatti in the superb The Holdovers , a movie that I wasn’t planning on writing up, but I kept thinking about it--and all of its characters--long after I saw it. In The Holdovers , Giamatti plays Paul H...
Post a Comment
Read more