THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020)

The Invisible Man Movie Review

A few years back, Universal announced their plan to create what they termed "Dark Universe", a collection of remakes of the classic Universal horror films. They had planned out which films would open in which order, had allegedly signed many stars to be in the movies, and they kicked it all off in 2017 with The Mummy, a Tom Cruise action flick that was bashed by critics and bombed at the box office. The film dropped hints at movies that were to follow, but after what they deemed a failure to launch, Universal scrapped the whole Dark Universe idea of tying all the films together, and decided to take a less ambitious approach--no more A-list stars, and no more $125,000,000 budget. For their remake of The Invisible Man, they turned to the masters of low-budget, big screen horror films, (Blumhouse Productions), a director and writer with a swell writing resume (Leigh Whannell, Saw, Insidious), and a star who, while no household name (yet), has turned a lot of heads the past few years (Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale). What could they do with a budget of "just" seven million dollars, or roughly 5.6 percent that of The Mummy?

"Choose your words wisely"

I'll get this out of the way now--this movie is far different from the 1933 film it is a remake of. If you have seen the original, you know the movie surrounds Dr. Jack Griffin, played wonderfully by Claude Rains. The remake is less about the actual invisible man and more about Cecilia Kass (Moss), the woman he is tormenting. Also, Jack becomes Adrian here--remember when I mentioned the stars Universal had in place for these movies? Johnny Depp was originally set to play Griffin, but he was replaced by relative unknown Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who may as well have been a cardboard cutout in his scenes--he really is that stiff, and the world will have to settle for wondering what could have been had Depp remained a part of the project. Moss, on the other hand, is wickedly good as the woman slowly falling into madness. The writing and directing are slick, and the visual effects are...different, but they work. At just over two hours, the movie feels a bit too long--cutting some of the scenes of Kass and her new housing near the start would have helped tremendously, but once the movie gets going, it maintains its suspense throughout. The ending, while not on the level of some of the other stuff Whannell has given us, is quite memorable and executed well. I'm going to be honest--when I saw the cast and the trailer for this film, I had no interest, but having checked it out, I will admit to being pleasantly surprised. 

"That's acceptable" 

On June 15, 2017, I wrote about Dark Universe. In that piece, I shared my thoughts on how I believed Universal should approach the remakes: "First and foremost, and this may seem obvious, but MAKE THE MOVIES DARK! Bypass the action adventure feel and the cheesy one-liners you gave us in The Mummy and go back to what the original films were: scary!" I added: "Finally, and possibly most importantly, I would forget the huge budget and especially the CGI. Have the guts and originality to make these movies without the crutch of CGI....Put these movies together the way they were meant to be, and you will not only win over the love of the millions of people who grew up watching the original films, but you will also pull in the people tired of watching overblown CGI-ridden snoozefests--plus you will save tons of money, enabling the profits to be much greater." As I mentioned, the 2020 remake of The Invisible Man was made for seven million dollars. To date, they have grossed over one hundred thirty million worldwide. Universal...when should I be expecting my check in the mail?

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

The Invisible Man Movie Trailer