Fear the Invisible Man

Wow!, was this a borefest.

The movie's top focus is the Victorian era, trying its best to act as it belongs there, with the buildings, wardrobe, accents, even the weather.

The main issue, The Invisible Man is genuinely a side kick, that reappears every now and then as the lead character takes charge.

It is a bold move to call this Fear the Invisible Man, as for one, of course we can't see him and two, we don't really get to see him, hear him, follow his character arc. This is one of those movies that put an ex famous actor on the cover that makes a cameo and then leaves. Same thing here, the movie uses a good bait and waits to see what it got hooked.

And the difference between this and an Asylum production, is quite small really. But more than anything, I kid you not, it is truly, truly, boring. Almost nothing happens, because as I said before, the movie's focus is it's surroundings, not characters but dialogue, not people but old clothes, no story but something to fill up close to 2 hours.

Not recommended. Definitely and well I guess, literally, nothing to see here.

Cheers!

One piece at a time, every great classic is being destroyed. Every day, I hear the words of George Orwell in his most famous work - "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

This was no exception. Being a fan of the HG Wells' work, I really wanted to like this. Unfortunately, this was 100 minutes wasted.

The movie itself was as boring as watching paint dry. Besides that, for a story about the invisible man, we seem to spend most of the movie following the girl around instead.

In the original, the process not only turned the inventor invisible, but also insane. With this incarnation, we are never shown anything at all about his past pre-transformation, so we have nothing on which to base his current obsessions. If you ask me, he doesn't act any differently than most people walking around today.

The acting was subpar, but that wasn't the worst. The worst was the apparent complete lack of a continuity editor. So many things are wrong that anyone competent at the job should have caught. For instance, when the man gets shot, there's no blood anywhere - obviously, because his blood would be invisible as well. But when the wound is bandaged, suddenly the blood becomes visible seeping through the gauze. But it's ok, because we're told that his blood becomes visible when it coagulates. :eye_roll: Really? OK, so why, when he steps on a broken bottle later do we see blood dripping and pooling on the glass? A wine bottle is taken from a wino and broken - mid swig - yet there is no liquid in the bottle when it shatters. When books are thrown in to a fireplace, there burst into flames as if they were made of magicians' flash paper. I could go on and on, but I have no desire to bore you just because I had to sit through this snoozefest.

Finally, as with most modern era flick, the past has been modified to reflect current attitudes towards casting... if you know what I mean. Not to mention the mixed affections being placed in front of us as every turn.

Do yourself a favor. Either watch the original 1933 version or better yet... read the book while you still can. I'd go so far as to say that even "Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man" would be better time spent than watching this.

Let's start the review - some of this film is exceptional, the period feel, the locations, the cutting, the costumes, the set dressings, but the acting is awful. A shambolic borefest populated largely by rank amateur actors who should seriously look at their 'true' job prospects before inflicting themselves onscreen. The lead woman,I won't name her as she deserves no recognition whatsoever, who plays the heroine, the widow who prefers red to black in her mourning costumes, and a change of costume in every scene (costly) in this mess, if I can call her lead woman, s a shrieky voiced ham who misses every cue and acts (if you can call it that) as if no other actors are present in every scene she appears in (get back to the day job Mrs, acting ain't for you) , which indeed, is to a certain extent true, as her companion in this rubbish is invisible through most of the film. Mike Beckingham plays the invisible man invisibly, his attempts to deliver the strangulated dialogue in the scenes where he is supposed to be there, but not there (he's invisible) are mournful. A career as a road sweeper beckons. As for the actor who plays the 'colonel', Wayne Gordon, well... did anyone tell him what movie he was actually in??? His delivery is like someone trying and failing for an audition in 'Spooks' - dreadful! Hopelessly miscast and hopelessly lost in his own self esteem as an actor, (a graduate from the McDonald's school of acting - a flat white and a cheeseburger please Wayne) are the two descriptions that spring to mind. Moving on to the veteran actor David Hayman's brief appearance in this mess - why David, why? Why did you get top billing, your fee, your name, were you an 'angel' financing this farrago of a film? Do tell! Are you that desperate for work? Shame on you! Choose your parts better next time luv ok? I won't mention the rest of the cast, I hope the pay check they got for this was worth the humiliation of actually appearing in it, Nuff said. Another dud from 'director' Paul Dudbridge! Bin it, don't buy it!

The movie throughout is pretty slow. But that is ok with me, I actually quite enjoyed a lot of the costumes, sets, and props around the movie. The acting for the most part was also very good. It must be difficult to act when in a empty room and talking to someone who isn't there but they pulled it off mostly. Also sometimes the voices were too low to hear over the audio, but most of the time they were alright.

I'm a very big fan of the original H. G. Wells book and I have always loved the original 1933 Invisible Man movie, and I will say after watching this, the 1933 movie is still my favorite and it's also the closest to the original source material of the book. It seems this movie tried to go with the book, but then immediately dropped it 5 minutes in. Which is okay.

I think I preferred this movie over the 2020 movie though. Overall I think a movie like this can work, and for the most part it almost does. What kills it, is that Kemp, the protagonist doesn't seem to have a reason to keep being around Griffin.

Speaking of Griffin, I do not care for the voice of him. The most important feature of the Invisible Man is the voice, Claude Rains is no longer with us, and to me he IS The Invisible Man. The voice in this movie just sounds off, and it sounds modified to be deeper than it really needs to be. Not sure if it is modified or if he just sounds like that.

Last thing is the CGI was pretty bad, I know this is a low budget film, but if you have bad CGI you should use less of it. The really noticeable parts were the 3rd time the same horse and carriage appeared, the rain, the fire, the snow/soup on The Invisible Man, and when Griffin becomes invisible/visible.

Also the ending is sequel bait...

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 2023 thriller titled "Fear the Invisible Man" prior to sitting down to watch it. And I had no idea what I was in for here, so I have to admit that I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations. Which, in turn, meant that director Paul Dudbridge had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

However, the storyline in "Fear the Invisible Man", as written by Philip Daay, Helena Gergelova and Monika Gergelova was sort of mundane, bland and rather uneventful. And for a thriller, that doesn't exactly spell top notch entertainment. The movie was sort of lacking a drive, and it felt like director Paul Dudbridge was just filming the thing whilst still in neutral gear.

Yet, I still managed to sit through all 100 minutes that the movie ran for, though I have to say that I was not really particularly entertained by what transpired on the screen.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble, except for actor David Hayman (playing Wicksteed), and he was barely in the movie at all. The acting performances in the movie were actually fair enough, despite the fact that the actors and actresses had surprisingly little to work with in terms of script, dialogue and characters.

Visually, however, then I will say that the CGI effects in the movie were actually surprising good for a movie of this type. And while the movie didn't make a lot of use of special effects, whatever effects were there were actually helping to make the movie a bit more interesting.

"Fear the Invisible Man" is not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, as there was hardly sufficient contents to support this first viewing. Nor is it a movie that I will recommend to fans of the thriller genre.

My rating of "Fear the Invisible Man" lands on a three out of ten stars.