The Invisible Man: Universal, Your Savior is Here!

    

Hot Take

I wasn't sure what to expect walking into "The Invisible Man" but walking out I was blown away by just how good this movie actually was. $20 plus tax well spent! Universal's attempt at their monster universe initially floundered before it got a chance to fly(i.e. "The Mummy") but "The Invisible Man" was a breath of fresh air into the cinematic universe the studio eventually hopes to build. Now I'm not sure where the Universal 'Monster Universe' is headed after this but if the other movies that are slated for production, Bride of Frankenstein being amongst them, follow the path of "The Invisible Man" and not that of "The Mummy" then I'd say that the Monster Universe might not be dead yet.

Long-story short, "The Invisible Man" is a superb movie with great acting, a great score, great cinematography, and a great director at the helm. Leigh Whannell kills it with this installment and I find this movie quite similar to Jordan Peele's "Get Out" and I can't wait to see what Whannell does next. The comparison to "Get Out" in my mind has less to do with the narrative being told and more about the way the story and the movie are crafted. The establishing shots present in this movie are breathtaking and force you to focus on multiple segments of the screen as you painstakingly search for the titular invisible man. Whannell will often times display a wide shot of a particular part of the room and the empty room paired with the eerie score will put you on edge and you'll be holding your breath waiting for something to happen, but by no means is the movie ever uninteresting or boring.

Elisabeth Moss shines as the star of this movie and without her amazing performance I can very easily see "The Invisible Man" falling apart. Her acting grounds the movie and makes it believable and she sells herself as a protagonist by being intelligent whereas typical protagonists in her position might not have made the same decisions she did. Her body acting is impeccable and shows that she's very deserving of her Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

Aldis Hodge and Storm Reid are perfect and more importantly believable as the father-daughter pair and also are an emotional focal point of the movie along with Elisabeth Moss.

Oliver-Jackson Cohen who plays the spurned ex-boyfriend is thrilling for the short amount of time he is actually on-screen and he really sells the part of being an over-whelming force of nature that you feel the need to get away from.

All in all the acting across the board is sublime.

Cold Take

The pacing is off in a few places, sometimes even a bit slow, especially in the beginning and there is one scene in particular that comes to mind at about the mid-way point but the movie makes up for it in spades later on. The action ratchets up so much and so quickly towards the end of the movie that you might find yourself missing the slower points of the movie which give the actors the chance to flex their acting chops.

Also some of the tension is dissolved when you do some deep thinking about certain aspects of the movie but I suggest you suspend your disbelief because after all it is a movie.

My Take

I absolutely enjoyed this movie and I'll be seeing it at least twice more while its still in theaters. Go see it and let me know what you think!