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| D+ D+ D+ | |
| Review by Xibo | Date seen: August 8, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: Battery Park, NYC | Grade: D+ |
| Summary: This movie tries to survive on special effects alone. | |
| First of all, the good news: this movie has awesome special effects. The computer generated images of ape and human becoming invisible and visible again (in stages, from inside out) is pretty amazing to see.
On the downside. The plot makes no sense. I guess all geniuses must be evil scientists, so we're led to believe that because our guy likes to peep through his window, he must be an evil killer inside. Why? What's his true motivation to turn so violent? It doesn't make any sense. The scripting sucks. The actors' lines are complete trash. The audience just boggles at how stupid they are. The things the character do don't make any sense. For example: take a PhD scientist, give her a 4' long crowbar, trap her in a freezer. The temperature drops from 60 to 10 in a few seconds, and then several minutes pass, and then we see the temperature drop from -10 to -40 in a few seconds. I guess from 10 to -10 takes extra long! Does she destroy the fans generating the cold? No. Does swing the crowbar like a bat and smash the window? No, she tries tapping the window with the end, completely ignoring the powers of levers. Does she jam the crowbar into the door hinge and use that 4' lever to pop open the door? No! She creates a weak magnet and uses that to somehow drag the door lock open. In another scene, an explosion caused by some nitrogylcerin explodes with normal flames, pink flames, and blue flames! And it keeps exploding for several minutes, lifting an elevator up in its shaft! Amazingly, this empty elevator, when falling back down, fails to stop with its emergency brake. Come on, it's an empty elevator, those emergency brakes are designed to work even if the car is full with 6000 pounds. In other scenes, the movie tries to tantalize the male audience by showing the invisible man taking advantage of women and baring their tits. But just as things start to get interesting, the movie moves on to some other insipid scene. And what's with the female scientist working with her ex and having an affair with one of the other scientists? Is she NUTS? If she's so crazy why doesn't she be the one who goes on a murderous rampage? The plots full of a lot more holes than this. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. | |
| B- B- B- | |
| Review by tmon | Date seen: August 12, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: New York City | Grade: B- |
| Summary: Nice SFX, a little suspense, insulting to the intelligence. | |
| I can't say much more that what Xibo did above. I did want to chortle at that laugh track they called science. For instance, as this formula ran through his blood to make him invisible, how did it get all the way out to the tips of his hair and his fingernails? How did the food that he ate suddenly become invisible? (Remember that you couldn't see his vomit.) And why is it in movies that no one ever wakes up when someone is fondling them and taking their clothes off? When the doorbell rings and there is no one through the peep hole, why do people open the door? And why, Why, WHY do people in movies always split up and run off alone?! And why were the defib paddles (used to make that somewhat clever but ultimately silly magnet) being stored in that freezer? (A tear froze on E. Shue's face. Taking it off her cheek and looking at it, she suddely got the inspiration for the magnet. Whaaa?) I only gave this the grade I did because the special effects were really out of this world. | |
"I should put quotes here."