“The Invisible Man” Review

Universal’s follow-up to their failed attempt at a cinematic universe features a film that is, well, quite good! It’s also not a film that really starts a cinematic universe too, which I think is part of the reason it’s great.

The Invisible Man is a film that could have gone either way. It could have been a really wonky and outdated attempt to revive an age-old classic, or it could have been cleverly adapted to fit the times and have a more technological sci-fi bent reflective of our society today. Thankfully, it’s more of the latter. While I would say that not all of the concepts land, it proved to be a very entertaining film that was fueled by a pretty solid performance from Elisabeth Moss.

I hope Moss doesn’t get type-cast into the “oppressed female” character, but man she does it pretty well. Without going too much into the film’s premise, it’s basically a 2-hour long gaslight-fest making her character out to seem like she’s crazy for thinking an invisible man is stalking her. While her performance as the paranoid and unhinged Cecilia is effective, we don’t really learn much about her character even though the film is all about her. The only thing we know is that she’s being chased, and it makes it hard to root for her apart from the fact that we know we should root for her. This also makes some of the narrative decisions in the end not really work for me, because there are some twists that are fantastic, but also kind of muddy up the overall message of the film. It’s hard to go into them without spoilers, but I think the script was a bit lacking in this film, and could have been touched up a bit to better serve the characters in the overall narrative. The film was also a bit too long, I think the build-up scenes started to get repetitive and they probably could have cut around 15 minutes of the movie.

The cinematography and sound editing is what makes this film so thrilling. You’d think a film about an invisible man wouldn’t be that scary, but Leigh Whannell’s creative direction and effective use of anticipation is what makes you second guess everything you’re seeing. There are so many ways that this film could have gone wrong, so the fact that it gave me A Quiet Place vibes should speak volumes about the quality of the film.

I generally don’t nitpick or get turned off by plot holes, because films that feature an invisible man shouldn’t really be taken super seriously to begin with. However, some characters make really dumb decisions and there are parts of the story that just don’t completely add up, and it did take me out of it at times. In the end, there is just way more to like about this film than there is to dislike, and it is genuinely thrilling and suspenseful for a premise that really could have been laughable and outdated.

Grade: B/80

 

“Birds of Prey” Review

Hello, 2020!

As per the usual of the beginning of every year, I haven’t posted in a while because most of the garbage films in the year get dumped in the first few months, which is why I haven’t posted about anything recently.

I watched Birds of Prey without having really high expectations. The only things I heard about—apart from the standard-fare female empowerment mumbo-jumbo from critics—was that the action was really well done. I gotta say, that was easily the best part!

Now, I don’t have much to say about this movie, much so because this movie doesn’t have much to say in general, and that’s totally fine. Harley Quinn is perfectly justified in having her own film, she has enough character and enough of a supporting cast to make it seem exciting and entertaining. Margot Robbie is fine as the famous anti-hero/villain, although I will admit that the inconsistency in her “Harley Quinn accent” bothered me at times.

The rest of the characters were fine too. Surprisingly, I thought Cassandra Cain, played by Ella Jay Basco, was a bright spot in the film. I honestly did not expect to like her, but she exceeded my expectations as a character and also in her performance. Jurnee Smollett-Bell was pretty good as Black Canary as well, although she didn’t have much time to develop her character. That applies even more so to Rosie Perez and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who play Renee Montoya and Huntress respectively, and are easily the two weakest characters in the film. It was a weird choice to make Huntress the comedic character, and I don’t think the jokes landed with her.

The action is easily the best part of the film. It’s really well choreographed and shot, and it’s not just small-frame women fist-fighting massively burly men and winning. They could have easily gone in that direction and I’m sure a crowd of people would have loved it, but the use of props, the set, and just overall surroundings incorporated into their fighting style made it very believable and entertaining. Definitely another surprising bright spot of the film.

Ewan McGregor as Black Mask was pretty good too. You could tell he was really enjoying the role he was playing. It’s kind of interesting to imagine the context of this film being in a world where Batman exists, and all these shenanigans are happening under his watch. Of course that’s not really a knock against the film, because the comics do that all the time.

Overall, this film was decently entertaining. It wasn’t mind blowing, but it wasn’t bad by any means either. It was fine. The action was better than I thought, but everything else seemed kind of standard fare. Warner Brother’s handling of the DC Comics franchise is so inconsistent and unpredictable at this point, that it’s actually more interesting to watch their films compared to Marvel’s. You don’t really know what kind of film you’re going to get just yet, because they don’t really follow as strict of a formula as Disney does with their comic book films.

Grade: B/76