Main cast: Elisabeth Moss (Cecilia Kass), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Adrian Griffin), Aldis Hodge (James Lanier), Storm Reid (Sydney Lanier), Harriet Dyer (Emily Kass), and Michael Dorman (Tom Griffin)
Director: Leigh Whannell
Despite the Blumhouse branding, The Invisible Man is more of a thriller than a horror flick. It also has little to do with the original story by HG Wells, as the man in question this time around is a one-dimensional poster boy for evil males everywhere. To be blunt, this is a standard woman-on-the-run-from-evil-ex story, only this time the ex wears a suit that lets him become invisible so that he can terrorize the heroine all day long.
Cecilia Kass early in the movie manages to flee her abusive boyfriend Adrian Griffin. The man is a brilliant and wealthy scientist, however, and he manages to fake his own suicide before donning his invention – a suit that manipulates light in order to render him invisible to the eye – to get back at her for leaving him. Cecilia is pregnant, however, so he decides to take out his violent, homicidal tendencies on the people she cares for instead. Will our heroine figure out what is happening in time to stop him? Well, that’s what this movie is all about.
I have to first get this off my chest: damn, Aldis Hodge looks fine here – look at those arms, people. Why isn’t he in this movie more, preferably with less clothing?
Elisabeth Moss is perfectly fine in her role, but the movie itself holds little suspense. The whole thing plays out like a typical movie with a similar plot, although the villain is rather shockingly unimaginative with his use of the suit. He just somehow stalks her and only occasionally does violent things, and his body count is laughably sad. One problem here is that Adrian is never given any semblance of characterization. He’s just evil, evil, evil, and because he is invisible most of the time, this fellow is practically a cardboard villain. Therefore, there is nothing that can be done with him. The movie has to be carried by Cecilia then, and our dear morphs from scared victim to efficient kick-ass bruiser with such an abrupt manner that it’s like there is a personality transplant that has taken place without anyone telling me.
The movie also goes out of its way, often to unrealistic degrees, to avoid having Cecilia using her phone to tape the strange incidents befalling her in order to convince the police. Also, if Adrian is traveling all over the place to harass Cecilia, does he do all that in the suit? What, he drives or flies in invisible mode? If not, how come no one can track his movements? I wonder about these things because the movie isn’t interesting enough to distract me with exciting things happen on the screen.
For the most part, The Invisible Man is a competent, okay movie, but it doesn’t have that wow factor to warrant going out of one’s way to watch it ASAP. I’d suggest waiting for it to hit a streaming service first before giving it a go.
