Film of the Week: The Invisible Man

This film was originally a part of Universal’s Dark Universe, a cinematic universe which was supposed to unite all the classic monsters together, starting with Tom Cruise’s reboot of The Mummy. It bombed, enormously. Universal fell into the same trap Warner Brothers did with their DC Extended Universe; they rushed it. Jammed too many characters into one film without giving any room to breath in their own story, therefore making it unnecessarily convoluted. Needless to say, the Dark Universe idea was scrapped and along with it their version of the Invisible Man, a character which had Johnny Depp playing.

However, the Dark Universe might have flown out of the window, but the concept of rebooting the Invisible Man remained, and Universal found themselves in a predicament where they needed to make some money, so they made the decision to keep all future films which would have been in their shared universe, as standalone instalments without any interconnectivity.

Oh, the irony. If this was still a part of the Dark Universe, this would have been a brilliant inclusion. There were probably many Easter eggs and references that flew over my head to other monsters, but there was no blatant inclusion of any interconnectivity throughout this film, an intention which the Mummy should have obeyed.

The Invisible Man is a masterpiece in comparison to the Mummy, because of its standalone context, allowing all the characters to be the best they possibly can be. The Science Fiction element mixed in with the horror saw Elisabeth Moss’s character, Cecilia Kass be proving right with her belief of being followed by her boyfriend, who everybody else believes is dead. Elisabeth’s performance was sensational – going from barely holding it together, to a total meltdown before piecing herself together and coming out on top, enabling her to walk away worry free. This film takes you through every step of her journey, and you feel what she’s going through. You almost find yourself shouting at the other characters to tell them she’s telling the truth, but like her, no one would hear you.

There’s a common statement which is usually said as a counterargument towards wanting invisibility as a superpower, and that’s if you’re invisible, so would your eyes be, and therefore there be nothing for light to bounce off, leaving you in complete darkness. Invisibility has been given to many characters over the years, completely ignoring this problem, mainly because whatever gifted them the power, overwrote this law. This film decided not to “just-go-with-it”, but instead have Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s character, Adrian Griffin invent a technologically advanced suit capable of rendering the wearer invisible, subsequently keeping their eyesight.

This film did more than just reboot, it reinvented the character, from having bandages wrapped around his whole body to having a suit – a massive change from the source material, and from the classic film of the same name.

This film did brilliantly because it was a standalone project and not part of a bigger universe, but what they’ve done is gone from one extreme to another: all in, to nothing at all. They could have sprinkled something in at the end, connecting the Invisible Man to the Dark Universe, but they spoilt any possible future of seeing the Mummy sharing the same space with the Invisible Man because they jumped in head first too soon, instead of taking it slow with this one.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)