The Invisible Man

"An invisible man can rule the world. No one will see him come, no one will see him go."
I had severely high hopes when I first tried watching the Invisible Man. What really made me want to watch it was the fact that James Whale directed it. For those who don't pay attention to old time directors he was the director of a very famous monster movie; Frankenstein! Although because he made Frankenstein I put it too high on a pedestal before watching it. The best part about this movie was Claude Rains. With this being his first American Picture he certainly had a very demanding first part to be known for.

Honestly I had to go through two sittings of this movie just to finish it, and they had about a year in between each sitting. Even after finishing this film I'm not really sure what to make from it. Coming from an iconic horror character and the director of Frankenstein I thought this movie would be near perfection, but I was wrong. If I was somebody living in the 1930's and walked in to watch this movie I'd think differently. This movie has really impressive special effects and I have to congratulate John Fulton putting the first invisible man (men) on screen. Compared to the CGI used today and used in Hollow Man I must admit that the first time invisibility was used on film is probably the best. It's achieved where we can't see any indication from body part, but enough so that our imagination will start filling in the invisible man's outline.

The best performance in this film is by Claude Rains and that is because of his phenomenal voice acting. Considering the actor of the invisible man does not appear human until the last few seconds of the film the actor who had to play him would have to convey 80% of his acting through his voice alone. The actor is barely (some what barely) on screen for most of the movie. He is either wrapped up or not there. But with Rains' distinctive voice and the emotion he put into every line it makes it very believable that he is descending into madness the longer he is invisible. However as a modern audience there are a lot of scenes that really made me question the movie.

Like I said it took two sittings to get through this. I was expecting a horror film so when I sat down for the first time I watched maybe around twenty minutes before turning it off. The fact that there is a hysterical woman screaming her lungs out with outlandish facial gestures threw me off so much that once it came to the police chasing a shirt around the room I could only think that this is the most ridiculous movie I had ever watched. A year passes and I feel like I should give it another chance so I pop it in and start watching it, this time finishing the whole thing. What made me get to the end was when I stopped thinking of it as a horror film and monster film and started taking it as a comedy, and it went much more better that way.

Although in fairness I guess back then when people thought of an invisible man and what may make him do all this it would have to be ridiculous. Nevertheless in my mind I would have to categorize this as a comedy than a horror/monster film. Some scenes were very good, Claude Rains was amazing as always and put on a great first show to American audiences. I loved the special effects, especially the foot prints in the snow where snow actually fell into the print after it was made! But I don't think much of this first impression of the invisible man when I compare it to the other icons Universal has made. So have you seen the Invisible Man, do you think it was better than what I thought of it?

RECOMMENDATION: Low/Medium