The Invisible Review

By Lee Arcuri

“From the producers of The Sixth Sense!” said the front cover of the DVD. I pick up the cover to read the back. “From the producers of The Sixth Sense!” says the back.

Don’t let things like this fool you. Always remember what can be said about Howard the Duck: “From the producer of Star Wars!”

I, however, decided to ignore my own sagely advice and I rented it anyway. You should always learn from your own mistakes, but it’s so much more convenient when you can learn from someone else’s. Learn from me. Glad I could help.

Getting back to the cover– I’m promised a gripping mystery about a boy named Nick who is brutally attacked and killed. Nick becomes a ghost, and then, according to the back cover, he has to solve the mystery of his own murder.

Hey, that sounds fun. I like mysteries. It’ll be neat to see someone solve the mystery of his own murder. Whodunit and all that.

So I’m a bit disappointed when about 30 minutes into the movie we watch Nick get murdered. We see exactly who murders him. We know exactly why they murder him.

I’ve been had. Time to get to the bottom of this. I look up the definition of mystery online. Sure enough–

Mystery [mis-tuh-ree] - noun
1. prior to 2007, anything that is kept secret or remains unknown.
2. after the 2007 release of the motion picture The Invisible, anything that is revealed or explicitly explained or shown.

Aha. That explains it. At this point I’m a little frustrated. Am I going to have to watch Nick try to figure out something that I already know? That ought to be fun (sarcasm!). Thankfully, the answer is no. See, not only do we, the audience, know exactly who killed Nick and why, but Nick knows, too. Worst. Mystery. Ever.

Oooooooookay. So now what? There’s an hour left of this film. What is Nick supposed to do? I’ll break it down for you.

30 minutes of Nick figuring out he’s dead and a ghost. This involves a lot of shouting. But not only is Nick invisible, he is also inaudible. But no one would go see a movie called “The Inaudible,” except maybe the hearing impaired.

1 minute of Nick figuring out he’s actually not really a ghost, he’s just sort of a ghost, which means he’s still alive, which means I was lied to AGAIN because you can’t solve the mystery of your own murder if you weren’t even murdered. I just don’t know who to trust anymore.

30 minutes of Nick following this girl around while emo music plays constantly. It would be easy to mistake this section of the movie for a really long Jimmy Eat World video.

5 minutes of thrilling conclusion.

Thrilling [thril-ing] - adjective
1. after the 2007 release of the motion picture The Invisible, failing to produce emotion or excitement.

The only mystery I can see (pre-2007 definition) is who gave this script a greenlight? It’s filled with laughable plot mechanics. For instance, Nick had a plane ticket to London the night of his “murder.” His best friend Pete was being accused by the murderer of going to the cops about something, and in order to save his own skin, told the murderer that it was Nick who went to the cops. See, Pete was absolutely sure Nick was going to be in London, so he thought it would be okay. Nick, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, decides not to go to London at the last minute, even though the first half hour of this movie sets him up as wanting to go more than anything. Then, for reasons that are also beyond my comprehension, Nick decides to go for a late night walk down the middle of a road. Seriously, like right down the middle. Then, for reasons that are beyond anyone’s comprehension, the murderer actually manages to find Nick on this road! Not by accident! The murderer’s car appears behind Nick with its lights off in what is supposed to be a creepy moment, but I was too busy laughing at the idea that the murderer would know exactly what abandoned forest road a person who is supposed to be in London would be walking down late at night.

There’s really not much more to say about this movie, except maybe for a bit more of my sagely advice. This is directed to filmmakers. It’s generally a bad idea to make your protagonist completely useless.

He’s invisible. He’s inaudible. He’s intangible. Which means he’s incapable. Of doing ANYTHING. He can’t touch things or move things. He can’t do things like hold a gun, or hold my interest, or carry a film. All he can do is uselessly yell and talk to himself and follow people around. Once he figures out he’s not really dead, then ostensibly he is trying to get people to find his body, which has been stashed in the woods. Too bad he can’t do anything to achieve that end. There was the potential for a real actual mystery when his body is moved. That would have been a nice twist to realize his body is no longer where we thought it was. But since the movie showed us exactly who moved the body and when and why, it wasn’t exactly a shocking twist, making that plot point completely useless as well.

Useless [yoos-lis] - adjective
1. see the 2007 motion picture The Invisible.

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