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The Life and Mind of DamnBlackHeart
This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.
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Movie Review -- The Invisible Man (2020) |
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The Invisible Man is a 2020 science fiction horror film written and directed by Leigh Whannell. A contemporary adaptation of the novel of the same name by H. G. Wells and a reboot of The Invisible Man film series of the 1930s-1950s.
When Cecilia’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.
I liked it! However, I wished it was titled as something else and that the trailer didn’t reveal too much. Because the audience already knows or at least has a pretty good idea of what they’re getting into with this movie. Maybe if it was titled something like…The Unseen? Unnoticed? Not Alone? Or Invisible and dropped the Man part of the title. I don’t know, something not so obvious.
In the beginning they wanted the readers’ questioning themselves about what’s true, like is it all in Cecelia – the main character’s head or is it really her husband’s doing? But that method didn’t actually work because of how they did it and that the audience already knew. The element of surprise was taken away already.
Maybe they should’ve build it up more with the psychological aspect of being in abusive relationship. And by starting off with small hints…such as what if Cecelia was reading a book and drinking tea or coffee. She takes a sip, puts it down, continues reading and goes to take another sip but misjudged the distance because she’s grabbing air. She doesn’t put much thought into it, but these small things start to add up. Items are misplace, things she put away are still left out in the opened, she starts wondering what’s going on with her…
I’m not saying they don’t do a bit of gaslighting, but the small bit they did Cecelia never for a second fell for it. It was like she had a sixth sense that immediately alerted her to her ex’s presence. There was only one scene that I found believable (the breakfast scene), but that was it. Or at least the only scene I could remember that stood out as believable. They should’ve had more like that and build it up to the point where the audience would’ve been questioning themselves too about what was real or not.
The audience already knew that her husband, Adrian was abusive, controlling and manipulative. So gaslighting would certainly be something that such a man with the power of invisibility would do to get back at his wife. Even though the audience never actually saw how their relationship was like, it wasn’t ambiguous at all for anyone to doubt Cecelia either. It was not only heavily implied to be abusive, but we hear it in the way she talked, acted, and so on.
Just imaged if this movie was more mysterious and played up on the psychology aspect more. You’re focus on Cecelia’s mental state from coming out of an abusive relationship, but realize there’s more to it. You think you’ve got the picture of what’s going on, but you’re proven wrong because things aren’t adding up. Suddenly you’re dealing with whole other level of it that you didn’t see coming. Well, that’s if they didn’t reveal anything obvious in the trailer or the promotional works.
Hmm, now that I think about they should’ve done something like how M. Night Shyamalan did with Split. In which the characters — and the audience — make a set of assumptions about the characters that turn out to be untrue. The audience was also completely surprised with the hint that connected this film with another film.
Either way, the movie was still pretty great! I do love the direction they went with it and the ending was great too. It’s definitely something I’ll be looking forward to, especially if it’s what I think they’re planning to do. Because if they’re still doing the Dark Universe this film is a much better one to start it with. It not only stand-alone on it’s own two feet (with it focus on individual storytelling), but has the potential to be the doorway to something bigger – more so with whatever they’re gonna do with her character – be it in a sequel or if she appears in another monster franchise as the connecting force.
I mentioned Shyamalan’s Split earlier because I can see Universal Picture doing it in a similar way if they stick with this film. It works a lot better than that unnecessary exposition dump and set up for the secret organization that they did in The Mummy (2017). They’ve should’ve focused more on the characters and believable storytelling than trying to shove something else in there.
 DamnBlackHeart · Wed Apr 08, 2020 @ 11:18pm · 0 Comments |
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