The Invisible Man.
Now I’m not usually a horror movie kind of guy but The Invisible Man is different. It’s more like a monster movie, which I can totally get behind. So while it took me a few weeks to finally catch it in theaters, here’s what I thought.
The gist.
Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) finally works up the nerve to leave her physically and emotionally abusive boyfriend and tech mogul Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). After she escapes from him, she receives word a few weeks later that he’s killed himself, from his brother and estate keeper Tom (Michael Dorman). Things start to get scary, as Cecilia notices strange sounds and sees what she believes is an invisible person in her bedroom one night. She starts to believe that Adrian isn’t dead after all and is instead, terrorizing her as an invisible man. Her sister (Harriet Dyer) doesn’t believe her and her police friend James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter (Storm Reid) don’t believe her either. Will anyone eventually trust this hard-to-believe story, or will Adrian eventually drive Cecilia insane?
What works?
Maybe my bar was low for this movie, but I found myself pleasantly surprised. As a ‘horror’ movie, it’s relatively tame. It’s suspenseful yes, because an invisible person is stalking this poor woman, but I didn’t find it to be too disturbing, so those of you that don’t usually have the stomach for scary movies might actually find this one enjoyable, I know I did.
Elisabeth Moss carries this movie and her decline into insanity is perfectly played. She’s at her best here, showing a whole range of emotions with absolute authenticity. The supporting cast is fine, but this is really her movie.
The other star of the movie is the invisible man himself. These effects are incredible, as we watch Elisabeth Moss literally wrestle with nothing. And they make perfect use of his invisibility, giving us plenty of jump scares and “WHAT THE!” moments. The trailers also showcased some cool parts of the movie, but didn’t give away too much, and even showed sequences cut from the actual movie, so I found myself unable to really gauge where the film was going.
What didn’t work?
This whole movie is driven by this man’s obsession with Cecilia (Moss). Yet we really don’t get much information as to why. The first sequence of the movie is her leaving him, so it’s not long before he becomes the invisible man. We don’t get any dialogue, any reason for him to torment her. The reasons we’re given in exposition don’t do much either, so I found myself not really sure what the villain’s motives were. She continually asks “Why me?” and “Why are you doing this?” and we don’t really get a satisfactory answer. As a villain, he’s terrifying but ultimately pretty superficial.
Overall…
This is a fun movie, and I say that from the perspective of avoiding scary movies. This is a good ole fashioned monster movie, with great special effects and plenty of twists and turns. The action is great, Moss’ performance is excellent, and this is ultimately a fun and wild ride, some solid escapism for these uncertain times.
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