Invisible, The

The Invisible requires far too much setup before we really get into the major ideas of the film. The first 40 minutes of the film is a complicated series of events that place a heavy burden on our patience. Finally, in an unfortunate series of events that would rattle Lemony Snicket, two lives are placed on a collision course.

Nicholas Powell (Chatwin) is a young poet who dreams of hitting the big time one day. Unfortunately his literature teacher never mentioned the getting dead part to being a famous poet. He sells term papers in order to collect enough money to go to London and a writing program at The Royal Academy. Annie Newton (Leveiva) is a common thief who has done a worse job picking her partner than she has on her other life choices. When Nick ends up on the wrong side of Annie’s temper, he finds himself at the bottom of a storm drain left for dead. He now roams the world as a “spirit” attempting to manipulate the people around him to rescue his body before it’s too late.

If you’ve gotten that far in the film, trust me, it’s too late. We’ve seen the “spirit” that no one can see bit too often before. What we end up with is a fair episode of Ghost Whisperer. Mostly the entire affair is painstakingly slow. I credit director David Goyer with some clever takes on the theme, but he desperately needed a better editor. The pace of this film just never allows us to get into any kind of ebb and flow. Instead the story, like Nick, meanders from place to place without any true focus or purpose. The film also tends to sink into trite sentimentality as we’re expected to believe that Nick and Annie are making some romantic connection. We all tend to fall for the girls that beat us into a coma and leave us for dead in a sewer. Try as I might, I was never able to connect at all with the film. As a horror film, it isn’t remotely scary. It appears intended for a youthful audience, but I think Goyer overestimates the younger crowd’s attention span.

Video

The Invisible is presented in its original 2.35:1 release aspect ratio. Everything about this print is average at best. Colors are often muted, and contrast allows them to blend together so much that there isn’t a tremendous level of detail here. The bit rate is an average 5-6 mbps. Lighting appears way off, particularly with flesh tones. In outdoor lighting they are usually too white and washed out. Black levels are actually quite solid with a minimal amount of grain. The print is clean, and I found no defects or artifacts to cause worry in the presentation.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is most evident in the musical cues. There is a very high level of clarity and crispness to the music. The sub response here is at times even overpowering, but always without any kind of distortion. The acoustic numbers shine the most with some rather pleasant acoustic guitar sounds that are natural and clean. Dialog is clear and well placed, but there isn’t a lot of use of surrounds outside of the music.

There are two audio commentaries here:

David Goyer is joined by Christine Roum, one of the writers. This is so much sweet love fest that it will drive your blood sugar sky high.

Mick Davis, the other writer. Why they couldn’t all just work on one I have no idea, as there’s absolutely nothing worth listening to here.

Special Features

Deleted Scenes:  There are nearly 14 minutes of deleted scenes, which further demonstrate how bad the editor on this film was. Many of these clips are far superior to ones in the film and fill in a ton of holes. We learn when Annie becomes a suspect and a scene where Nick talks to a dying man in the hospital, which was on the original trailer but finally cut from the film. It might have offered the only truly scary moment in the entire film. Two of the scenes are obviously presented out of order, dealing with Pete’s arrest and interrogation.

Music Videos: Purely kiddie stuff.

Final Thoughts

I can’t say it enough times. The pacing in this film destroys any potential or creativity to be found here. The film is obviously trying to say something here, but the message is never clear. I’m sure there is some deeper meaning about how people are connected. The theme seems to be prevalent here. Not only is there this connection between Nick and Annie, but we see it in some rather awkward scenes between Nick and his mother. It’s kind of like the old campfire song tells us about life being just a dream. Hopefully your dreams have better editing. “What is that, irony?”