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 I was surprised to see there wasn't a thread for this already. It came out in the US Friday and is projected to do pretty well commercially on top of some strong critical acclaim. This is the first Universal "monster" movie since the company aborted its idiotic "Dark Universe" idea in favor of standalone films. Leigh Whannell (director of Upgrade, writer of Saw and Insidious) directs an extremely loose adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel, flipping the perspective from Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) to his victim, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss). The basic premise: After escaping the house of her abusive and fabulously wealthy scientist boyfriend Adrian (who made his name in optics tech) and moving in with single dad cop friend James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter Sydney (Storm Reid), Cecilia is informed that Adrian has committed suicide and left her a small fortune, pending on her mental fitness and staying out of trouble. Soon after, she starts to feel the presence of an unseen force messing with her life. Is it possible that Adrian is somehow doing this or is she just going nuts as the result of years of abuse? Obviously the former. You've seen the trailer and bought tickets to a movie called "The Invisible Man." My review: Really enjoyable but it also felt like two different movies. The first half is straight horror/thriller and preys effectively on my own night time paranoia. The way Whannell makes use of empty space, panning his camera to empty corridors and unfilled chairs, is awesome. Reminds me of how It Follows used super wide frames to make you scared of nothing. After the awesome restaurant scene at the midway point, it becomes a revenge movie and Adrian starts to feel like a comic book supervillain more than anything. It was highly entertaining but removed a lot of the tension. Overall I'd give it a B+. Henchman of Santa fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 1, 2020 |
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Mar 1, 2020 16:33
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Just going to copy what I just posted in the horror thread - Just saw The Invisible Man and loved it. It was amazing how tense they could make a shot of literally nothing. I would keep scanning the scene looking for a hint but they never gave us anything, not a curtain flutter or a chair change shape, nothing, it was exhausting in the best way. Any jump scares were well deserved. The 15 minute span where the invisible Man was shooting out kneecaps and beating the cop nearly to death was horrific to watch.
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Mar 2, 2020 00:37
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I am gonna go big spoilers on my thoughts for a second, but I think this movie may be low key brilliant as social commentary about female terror even beyond the obvious level of its themes what originally bothered me a lot about the film is that we never really see Adrian be abusive. The worst we see is him punching through a window while drugged in the first few minutes of the film. It was a lot of telling and not showing. I was also bothered by the fact there was so much ambiguity about whether Adrian did it, because it sort of detracted from the idea of female strength and sort of turns it into a 'maybe she is bad, too" thing. The only time we see Adrian, at the end, he doesn't ever seem like the monster he has been described as being. A piece of poo poo maybe, but not the ultimate psychopath. Then it clicked. It was the final ultimate metaphor of living in a patriarchal rape culture. We are given a woman's word that he is a monster, but are never given definitive proof, never see explicit visual evidence he did anything. He is, to the audience, just like most abusers are in real life, obfuscated behind a comfortable veil of deniability. We are never given absolute concrete evidence that he was any of the things all of the characters accuse him of being. The movie deliberately toys with that nagging sense of doubt because that is the sense of doubt that defines being a spectator to an abusive relationship. In the end, the only reason we can assume that she did the right thing in killing him is because she assures us it was the right thing. We, the audience, are asked to trust the victim. Just like the manta
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Mar 2, 2020 01:49
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The Invisible Man: The Final Chapter of The Elon Musk and Grimes saga.
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Mar 2, 2020 03:45
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am gonna go big spoilers on my thoughts for a second, but I think this movie may be low key brilliant as social commentary about female terror even beyond the obvious level of its themes I thought it felt more cut and dry than that. I didn't think anything about the movie was meant to have the audience doubt her. At least once it was completely confirmed that it wasn't all in her head. If that's what some people get out of it, it's a fine takeaway I guess, but in the end there was an actual invisible man wreaking havoc on her life and the brother had absolutely no motivation to do any of it, at least without Adrians direction. So there was no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. His side of the story didn't even make any sense.
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Mar 2, 2020 03:55
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I don't usually gripe about plot holes but why the hell didn't she take the suit from the house when she went back there? Why hide it? If she grabs it and runs then she has 100% proof and like all those further issues are done
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Mar 2, 2020 17:59
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OpenSourceBurger posted:I don't usually gripe about plot holes but why the hell didn't she take the suit from the house when she went back there? Why hide it? If she grabs it and runs then she has 100% proof and like all those further issues are done I took it as she assumed she was cornered and was gonna get caught and hid the suit for her next escape.
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Mar 2, 2020 18:10
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Saw this over the weekend and it’s just so good. One thing my wife and I were discussing was the job interviewer making remarks about her being beautiful. Obviously, even in a normal situation those comments would be inappropriate, but maybe not enough to cause most women to fight back, but just smile and go along with it, because of the power imbalance in that dynamic. But as an abuse victim, constantly needing to look over her shoulder and not knowing who she can fully trust, those comments come off as more than inappropriate; they are threatening.
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Mar 2, 2020 23:56
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question: what was the span of time on the title card near the beginning? right after she escapes i cant remember if it was weeks or months
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Mar 3, 2020 22:10
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I think it was two weeks.
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Mar 3, 2020 23:22
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I gotta admit it, I was kind of disappointed when they talked about how recent the pregnancy was, they were gonna reveal he impregnated her while invisible or some poo poo would have been dark as hell but gently caress it go whole hog
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Mar 4, 2020 02:47
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I gotta admit it, I was kind of disappointed when they talked about how recent the pregnancy was, they were gonna reveal he impregnated her while invisible or some poo poo would have been dark as hell but gently caress it go whole hog I got a little confused by the timeline and thought that was what happened until the end.
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Mar 4, 2020 03:00
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 Yeah it would have been hosed up, but man it would have been the ultimate final gut punch.
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Mar 4, 2020 03:18
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this movie was sure full of surprises. click these black boxes to be surprised! you could say the characters were so transparent it's like they weren't even there!!!! it's like the plot dissappeared into thin air!! the subtext is the invisible man and im elizabeth moss getting thrown around the kitchen apart from that, camera work is cool and good but my ears have been spoiled by joker and chernobyl so hearing lovely generic thriller horror stings now make my ears bleed more than ever for the films dissonance between social commentary and consequence i rate this film under the catagory of "amerikkka", where everyone knows how to use a loving gun like john wick
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Mar 4, 2020 09:36
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hot take #2 i'm dissappointed there wasn't a scene like this included, https://youtu.be/BM5Suw5bSG0?t=34 considering half of the main characters get murdered so casually
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Mar 4, 2020 10:09
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I think it was an interesting choice to not show what she ultimately decides to do about the baby.
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Mar 4, 2020 18:40
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Question: did iMan actually kill any of the cops? I couldn't tell with the last one in the hallway sequence since he kinda taughts him and seems like he fires it wherever. gregday posted:Saw this over the weekend and it’s just so good. One thing my wife and I were discussing was the job interviewer making remarks about her being beautiful. Obviously, even in a normal situation those comments would be inappropriate, but maybe not enough to cause most women to fight back, but just smile and go along with it, because of the power imbalance in that dynamic. But as an abuse victim, constantly needing to look over her shoulder and not knowing who she can fully trust, those comments come off as more than inappropriate; they are threatening. it was the bad guy from Upgrade too, but a complete afterthought character in this
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Mar 5, 2020 10:12
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Alan Smithee posted:Question: did iMan actually kill any of the cops? I couldn't tell with the last one in the hallway sequence since he kinda taughts him and seems like he fires it wherever. I think at least some of them are supposed to be dead, but part of the point of the sequence is his arrogance and his assumption that he's above retribution, so it makes sense that he would leave some witnesses.
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Mar 5, 2020 16:14
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Also that, at that point, he has probably already decided to frame his brother
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Mar 5, 2020 16:16
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Also that, at that point, he has probably already decided to frame his brother Yeah, he would've had to have the plan in place because there's no way he would have gotten a second suit to his brother in time to beat Cecilia to James' house if that was on the fly. The brother was probably always a contingency for if he was revealed.
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Mar 5, 2020 16:55
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Alan Smithee posted:Question: did iMan actually kill any of the cops? I couldn't tell with the last one in the hallway sequence since he kinda taughts him and seems like he fires it wherever. He seems to deliberately "kneecap" one- which doesn't necessarily guarantee they won't die, mind you, but it's an old movie cliché now- but honestly I feel like he is sloppy because it's not like he's an expert marksman, he shoots them, they go down, whatever. The Invisible Man archetype is the classic sociopath, you really don't care about the consequences of your actions anymore. Anyway, really good horror flick. Also Aldis Hodge is in it and he needs to be in more things.
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Mar 7, 2020 07:02
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Just finished watching the movie. I really liked it! A poster above mentioned the movie telling of the abuse rather than showing it, but I felt the movie showed it extremely well. They showed the abuse, not by showing the abuse, but by showing the effects of the abuse. Within a minute of the movie starting, I could tell that Adrian was a very dangerous man, simply by Cecilia’s facial expressions and body language. Everything she does shows that she is full of terror and panic. One thing I liked was how they showed her in full makeup at the beginning and I wondered if that was a “women in movies always wear full makeup thing” or a storytelling thing, and I was happy to see it was a storytelling thing when she was shown later to be wearing little to no makeup at all. She looked like a tired, stressed out wreck for most of the movie, which was great. I was surprised to learn that the movie was written and directed by a man, as it does a great job on focusing on women’s fears. I have not personally been in an abusive relationship, but I saw the film with a friend who had more experience in that regard and she said the whole beginning of the movie made her want to throw up. I loved all the subtlety at the beginning. The camera pans to an empty corner of the room, the knife being taken, the tugging on the bedsheets. It’s ramped up very nicely and it adds more tension since the audience knows more than the main character. We know he has a knife, but we don’t know when or where he might use it. There’s a definite tone shift halfway through the movie, and while I enjoyed the higher tension in the first half, I didn’t think the second half was too bad. It went from “Oh no, where is he, what’s he going to do?” to “yeah, get that motherfucker!” The only way for Cecilia to take care of him was to do so while she could see him, using his own tricks against him. I’m fine with that ending. Overall, I had a really good time. For yeeeaaars I’ve been saying that the Universal monsters need to be brought back as true horror. The best thing you can do with those characters is to make them all really scary again to modern audiences and I think they’ve done a great job with The Invisible Man. No one was scared of the Invisible Man anymore, if they ever were, but this was an excellent way to make this character pants-shittingly scary. I fully approve and look forward to more.
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Mar 7, 2020 07:13
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supposedly Tom Cruise mummy was gonna be in the same universe. Didn't watch it but Russell Crowe was Jekyll/hyde? If so 
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Mar 7, 2020 08:12
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Alan Smithee posted:supposedly Tom Cruise mummy was gonna be in the same universe. Didn't watch it but Russell Crowe was Jekyll/hyde? If so They were going to make an Invisible Man movie for the "Dark Universe" franchise to tie into that mummy film, but it would have starred Johnny Depp and would not have been a thriller/horror movie, but action and adventure. We dodged a bullet.
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Mar 7, 2020 13:38
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:They were going to make an Invisible Man movie for the "Dark Universe" franchise to tie into that mummy film, but it would have starred Johnny Depp and would not have been a thriller/horror movie, but action and adventure. You say that like some Universal exec isn't currently drawing up plans for a Frankenstein movie that ties into this one somehow
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Mar 7, 2020 23:57
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Bride of Frankenstein that centers around her escaping from Frankenstein being abusive. Mid-credits scene of Elizabeth Moss meeting her and saying, "I'd like to talk to you about the support group I'm forming."
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Mar 8, 2020 01:03
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1stGear posted:Bride of Frankenstein that centers around her escaping from Frankenstein being abusive. Mid-credits scene of Elizabeth Moss meeting her and saying, "I'd like to talk to you about the support group I'm forming." I want to tell you about the Survivors initiative Under the right director Frankenstein could own What’s Leigh Whannell up to these days
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Mar 8, 2020 04:19
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Only vaguely related but I once heard an audio drama version of Frankenstein in which the monster is voiced by a woman. It was apparently just a case of her being best for the role but it works out pretty well.
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Mar 8, 2020 04:29
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I loved this movie. Fun, tense, and exactly what they should be doing with the Universal Monsters instead of trying to turn them into weird action movie superhero crap. My favorite smallish moment: When the Invisible Man grabbed the gun, floated it in front of the guard and then goes "BANG!", only to then shoot him in the back of the head. It reminded me a LOT of the original movie and how much of a dick the Invisible Man was.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:44
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I had to pause the movie because I was laughing too much at the sister throat cut. I'd say it was a solid 3/4, started to run out of steam a little towards the end.
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Mar 28, 2020 22:45
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The 2/3rds is fantastic, the second 1/3rd is pretty good.
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Mar 28, 2020 23:00
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