Written And Directed by Leigh Whannell
Cecelia (to Adrian): "Surprise!"
There was a time, not so long ago that Universal had planned a big and connected horror universe but with the flop of The Mummy that idea got quickly abandoned. Instead, it was a case of reviving horror icons but keeping them in their own worlds.
That shift in ideas definitely benefits this particular version of The Invisible Man because it feels too grounded to be in a shared universe. Not to mention, it's given a rather definitive ending that doesn't seem to lend itself out to further expansion.
However while past versions of the titular character aka Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) have been more heroic, this one's a straight up menace. A controlling mad scientist and Cobalt CEO, the movie opened with Adrian being drugged by his girlfriend, Cecelia Kass (Elisabeth Moss). Yes, she had good reason to do it.
Cecelia was trying to escape the abusive relationship she was suffering from with Adrian and had gotten her sister, Emily (Harriet Dyer) to aid her escape while staying with her detective best friend, James Lanier (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter, Sydney (Storm Reid). It seemed like she was free of Adrian, even more so when his brother, Tom (Michael Dorman) told her Adrian was dead.
Of course at no point in this movie were we as an audience meant to believe that and it didn't take long for an invisible Adrian to terrorise the living daylights out of Cecelia. Messing up job interviews, breakfasts, drugging her with diazapam and yeah, killing her own sister in a restaurant. Adrian's onslaught of terror on Cecelia was relentless.
It got to the point in the movie that Adrian succeeded in nearly removing all of Cecelia's support system, even letting her rot in jail until she managed to fight back. There's a bluff with Adrian making it look like Tom had tied him up and was actually the one hounding Cecelia but the latter saw throught that and got her revenge.
For a title villain of the piece, Oliver Jackson-Cohen definitely got very little screen time as Adrian but certainly made the most of the material regardless. It's Elisabeth Moss who dominated as Cecelia and there's something satisfying in the revenge that she enacted on Adrian. He really should've seen it coming.
- Originally this was going to be a movie that had Johnny Depp as the title character but I think we fared a lot better with what we got here.
- There's a connection to Whannell's other movie, Upgrade here through the fictional Cobalt company.
- Funnily enough a sequel has been discussed (where would they go with that?) as well as a movie for The Invisible Woman but whether either happen remains to be seen.
- Chronology: Present day San Francisco, thought the movie was filmed in Australia.
This version of The Invisible Man might have taken our title character down a villainous path for a sci-fi take of domestic abuse and coercive control, but it was worth it. Great performances from Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen and a satisfying ending make this a very worthy reboot.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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