After staging his own suicide, a scientist learns how to become invisible to stalk and terrorize his ex-girlfriend, who left him due to his increasingly abusive nature. When the police refuse to believe her story, she eventually decides to take matters into her own hands and fight back against what she can’t see.
The Invisible Man is a story that is very popular in pop culture, having had numerous adaptations of it based on the original book by H.G. Wells. Some of those films, like the 1933 adaptation, are considered well known classics, and some adaptations are considered absolute garbage, like Hollow Man. Then came along this adaptation, which started development in 2007, was revived in 2016, and was initially meant to be a part of the loathsome Dark Universe created by Universal pictures.
It was also meant to have Johnny Depp star as the titular character as well. However, after how hard The Mummy bombed in 2017, future plans for this Dark Universe were completely tossed aside and once again this adaptation was hanging on the edge with no one to save it… or so we thought.
Out of nowhere Blumhouse comes and saves the project (but drops Johnny Depp) and hires on Leigh Whannell to direct after his recent success with Upgrade. And you know what Leigh Whannell decides to do? He decides to make an incredibly and gorgeously shot, stand-alone horror film that defies expectations. I absolutely loved this movie. I had such serious doubts and concerns going in that I didn’t think I was going to buy into it. But everything in this movie from the acting to the cinematography to the pacing and bone chilling narrative ultimately culminates in an adaptation that really stands out from the previous in many ways.
Elisabeth Moss, the main focus of the movie, was absolutely amazing in this role and this is perhaps one of my favorite performances from her in her career so far. She plays such a perfect victim of physical and mental abuse that you never have to see the abuse being committed to know that she is a victim, as you can see it in her face, the way she acts, and how mentally degraded she has become. But despite this she is in fact a very smart horror protagonist as she finds various means to defend herself and others from her invisible tormentor, and doesn’t act like the cliche scared girl that constantly screams as most horror characters like to do.
The rest of the cast did an excellent job as well but Moss really was the main focus, as was of course the titular “monster” of this movie. And I am not kidding when I say monster because the Invisible Man is absolutely terrifying in this movie. Not just because he is invisible but because he is a smart and calculated individual. He is an absolute psychopath, but a very smart one, who is able to find various psychological ways to torment Moss’s character that are shocking and really get under your skin.
But the thing is that at the end of the day he is still a human being, which shows that humans can be more terrifying monsters than most horror creatures. When you think of all the universal monsters, out of all of them the Invisible Man doesn’t have any super powers, just his intelligence and the ability to not be seen. Also the way they chose to modernize how he becomes invisible is actually really well done and keeps the movie at a realistic tone.
This is a very different take of the original source material as it does what a proper remake should do, introducing new concepts to make it stand out on its own, and also execute those concepts in good way, which is exactly what Leigh Whannell did. From the opening scene you are able to fully understand what is going on, and we are given very important shots that later reoccur in the movie that pull us into the moments and deliver excellent visual story telling. There are only a few moments of exposition given in this movie to let us know basic important information, and then the rest of the information we get from what is presented visually.
The cinematography is absolutely fantastic as it truly sets up paranoia for both the character and the audience. We get these long still shots that make you very uncomfortable as you try desperately to see if there is any movement made or any figure to see, and there isn’t, which makes you question if he is there or not, and really drives that fear right to the heart. The detail of this movie is incredible too, as you can easily miss small things that are so important which come back up later in the film. There is never anything left out or left hanging by any means, as the director utilizes every specific detail to his advantage.
The way that sound is used in this film really adds on to the paranoia aspect and creates great scenes of tension. There are jump scares present but they are built up so well that they are really effective. There is a musical score but it’s only used subtlety throughout the film for the big moments, mainly a lot of scenes are silent, which again adds to the tense atmosphere and fear of being watched by someone.
There are also some twists this movie delivers, some I kind of expected and others I didn’t, but they are all well built up by the attention to detail. This movie certainly subverts what you would expect from a film like this and it ultimately leads to a very clever and satisfying conclusion that I think a lot of people will love.
And honestly, it’s really hard to find any flaws with this movie, apart from very minor nitpicks, but that’s all they are, just nitpicks. Remakes these days can be really hard to accomplish if there is no passion put into them, which can be said for a lot of films that have come out in recent years. But for the first time in a long time we get a remake that was given maximum effort and truly stands out in a big way. And for those reasons I’m going to honor The Invisible Man as the first movie of 2020 to get an A+.
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