Movie Review - The Invisible Man (2020)

This film has the same premise as Sleeping with the Enemy (1991). Unfortunately, writer-director Leigh Whannell perhaps didn't watch that 1991 film closely enough. Julia Roberts who starred in that 90's pulpy classic wasn't dealing with a mad genius who had the ability to turn invisible. Yet, she was ostensibly a whole lot smarter than the female protagonist here. This is a horror film, so a staple of horror films is people doing dumb things and not making smart decisions. This one is apparently no different. The film wants its protagonist to be clever, but, in order to orchestrate some of the scary or thrilling sequences that Whannell wants, it requires its protagonist to be dumb or do things that's more trying to be a horror film than something that reflects what a reasonable-thinking person would do.

Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale and Mad Men) stars as Cecilia Kass, a young woman who lives in San Francisco. She went to college and studied architecture. She hopes to get a job at a design firm. She's currently involved though with a wealthy and powerful man who is revealed to be abusive and controlling. She lives with him, but it's gotten to the point that she needs to get away from him. She develops a plan to escape him and his trauma.

In Sleeping with the Enemy, a woman named Laura is in an abusive and controlling relationship with a very wealthy and powerful man in Massachusetts. Laura decides to escape this man. First, she fakes her death and she secretly flees across the country to Iowa. Laura was smart, very smart. Cecilia isn't as much. Whereas Laura fakes her death, Cecilia doesn't. This alone doesn't make her dumb, but, Laura knew that she had to go at least half-way across the country as a bare minimum. Cecilia doesn't even leave the city, let alone state.

Aldis Hodge (Brian Banks and Straight Outta Compton) co-stars as James Lanier, a police detective, presumably in the San Francisco Police Department. He's friends with Cecilia and her sister. He takes Cecilia into his house and allows her to live there until she overcomes her trauma and is able to get that architecture job she wants. He's a handsome, charming guy who is also a single father. If he's a good enough friend that he would take her into his home with his daughter there, it would make sense that Cecilia's abusive boyfriend would have some inkling of who he is. Cecilia refuses to stay with her sister who lives somewhere in San Fran because Cecillia thinks her abusive boyfriend can track her to her sister's house, but it's again dumb to think he couldn't track her to James' house as well.

Whannell is known for two big horror franchises. The first is Saw (2004). Whannell in fact wrote the screenplays for the initial, three movies in the Saw franchise. The second though is Insidious (2011). He wrote both Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). He then wrote and directed Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) as his debut in the captain's chair, as it were. The Insidious franchise would seem to be more near and dear to his heart. That franchise is essentially people being haunted by ghosts, creatures that often they can't see. Therefore, it makes sense that Whannell would be tapped to do this film about again a creature that you can't see.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House and Man in an Orange Shirt) also co-stars as Adrian Griffin, the titular character and the character that was so named in H.G. Wells' 1897 novel. However, Wells' novel had Adrian become the subject of a biochemical experiment that turns him invisible, a condition that he can't reverse. He was perhaps a psychopath prior to the experiment, but arguably the aftermath of the experiment drives him even more insane. That's not the case here. Adrian is most likely psychotic from the beginning. He's obsessed with Cecilia and uses his invisibility to stalk her, as well as to ruin her life.

Even though the title suggests the film would be about Adrian, it's not. We never really get into his head or understand his psychopathy. At one point, Cecilia asks why her and tries to interrogate Adrian, but the film never answers that question. In Sleeping with the Enemy, we get a bit of a glimpse into the abusive man's mind. He was married to the woman he abused. He had strong and out-of-control jealousy. It's not much, but it was way more of the abusive man's character than what we get with Adrian.

We learn that Adrian's invisibility is no accident. It's an ability that he invented and can control. It's also not irreversible. Of course, a person with that ability could do a myriad of amazing things. Why he would use it simply to stalk a girlfriend to whom he wasn't even married is something that this film won't even bother to explore. His goal seems to frame her for a murder, but then what? What was his goal? Was it to stand in her prison cell forever being invisible?

Before she's framed for murder, Cecilia realizes fairly soon that Adrian is invisible and is stalking her, even existing inside James' house. It's at this point that Cecilia's dumbness becomes even more pronounced. The first bit of dumbness is staying where she is. If she knows that he's there, why would she stay? Because she does stay, why wouldn't she start thinking about ways to detect him or find him somehow? After a blatant attack, she comes up with one lame idea, but she conceivably has a day or so to think about it. Why wouldn't she immediately invest in something like night vision or infrared goggles? Her friend is a police detective, so he could perhaps have access to those or simply buy some online. The least one could do is install motion sensors.

Yet, even if you put all that dumbness aside, there's a question if Cecilia is crazy or if Adrian really is an invisible man. Cecilia uses her smartphone to order a ride-share to Adrian's house. There, she finds proof that she isn't crazy and that Adrian has invented invisibility technology. Instead of using her smartphone to shoot video of that proof or using her smartphone to live-stream it to some social media site or to her police detective friend, she doesn't do anything. Instead of using the proof that she finds to turn herself invisible to protect herself, she doesn't do that but hides in a closet. It's just dumbness.

Rated R for some bloody violence and language.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 4 mins.