4K Ultra HD: “The Invisible Man” Marks A Welcome Return To Old-School, Thriller Filmmaking

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.

When Tom Cruise’s “The Mummy” was released in 2017 and was deemed a critical and financial flop, Universal Pictures, who had planned on moving forward with a shared cinematic universe, similar to Marvel and DC titled Dark Universe, where their old classic monsters would be revived in updated adaptations, decided to drop those plans after the failure of “The Mummy.” The strategy was to make intertwining films where characters could cross over and even team up together and in 2019, Universal decided to move forward with updating their monster catalog but concentrate instead on individualized storytelling instead of a serialized universe.

Leigh Whannell, who directed “Insidious: Chapter 3” and “Upgrade,” and who also wrote the scripts for the “Insidious” movies as well as the first three “Saw” films, tackles “The Invisible Man” with great aplomb and delivers a taut, nailbiting, and, at times, bloody horror-thriller that is so much better than it has a right to be. Elisabeth Moss shines in a role that feels like it was tailor-made specifically for her and she gives an indelible performance, initially starting out as a scared woman running away from an abusive relationship, to gradually going crazy as her whole world around her begins to crumble, and finally, as a woman who has had enough and decides to fight back.

Moss plays Cecilia Kass, a woman who is in a relationship with Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a wealthy scientist who is the leader in the field of optics. In the middle of the night, she quietly packs a bag and sneaks out of her isolated house, meeting her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer), on an old backroad but just as they are about to leave, Adrian appears out of nowhere and smashes the passenger window, trying to pull Cecilia out of the car. Emily manages to pull away and they drive off into the safety of the city. Cecilia stays with an old childhood friend of theirs, James Lanier (Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter Sydney (Storm Reid). James is a San Francisco cop and Cecilia informs him and Emily of just how abusive Adrian was, mentally and physically.

When Cecilia receives a letter in the mail from Adrian’s estate, asking her to go to their San Francisco office, Emily goes along with her and they learn that Adrian committed suicide. Adrian’s brother, Tom (Michael Dorman), informs them that he left Cecilia $5 million in his will but that she will not be entitled to the money if she is arrested or declared insane. Cecilia signs the documents and the money is deposited into her account and slowly, she begins to get a sense of normalcy back in her life. But just as things look like they’re settling down, she begins to experience strange goings-on. Things start moving by themselves, she feels a presence around her when she’s alone, she overdoses on medicine she stopped taking once she left Adrian and while she is talking to Sydney one night, Sydney receives a punch in the face and freaks out, accusing Cecilia of the deed.

When James tries to figure out why she would hit his daughter, Cecilia adamantly denies the claim and starts talking about all the strange happenings in her life and is convinced that Adrian faked his death and somehow managed to turn himself invisible. Alarmed and upset, James asks Cecilia to move out of their house while he takes Sydney to stay at a friend’s house for the night but while James and Sydney are gone, she discovers a clue in the attic that leads her to believe that Adrian is alive. In a game of cat and mouse that will take her back to the old house where she used to live, she unearths proof that Adrian designed a suit utilizing optics technology, one that allows a person to completely disappear. Now she must try to convince Emily and James of the truth before it’s too late.

This updated version of H. G. Wells’ classic story is nothing like the novel he wrote in 1897 but I can only imagine that Wells would probably get a kick out of this adaptation and its use of amazing technology. The film throws twist after twist at you and just when you think you have it all sorted out, a curveball arrives and forces you to start over from scratch. Elisabeth Moss does a tremendous job in her role as she vacillates between happiness and uneasiness, not an easy feat, going from one end of the spectrum to the other in an instant but she does so with great ease and proves why she is in high demand in Hollywood right now. “The Invisible Man” is reminiscent of Scorsese’s “Cape Fear” and Wolfgang Petersen’s “Shattered,” movies that genuinely kept you guessing, all the way up to their shocking finales and while you are convinced you know exactly how this movie is going to end, director Leigh Whannell pulls the rug out from underneath you, proving that you don’t know anything at all.

Now available on Digital HD and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ and DVD May 26th