“The Invisible” (Hollywood Pictures)
Entertainment Value is Invisible
“The Invisible” is one of those movies that seems to be telling you something important but in truth it is mostly hot air. It is all presented in a weighty manner but the story ends up being just a silly take on a serious subject. The actors do what they are supposed to do but they can’t lift a hokey premise to glorious heights.
The movie starts off with a surrealistic graduation party sequence that introduces the audience to the character of Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin). He is a high school senior whose father has died. He feels totally isolated from his mother (Marcia Gay Harden), a beautiful socialite who drifts through life in a fog.
Nick has plans to leave for London to study writing but an attempted murder delays his plans. He is beaten up and left for dead by a troubled girl named Annie (Margarita Levieva). Nick finds himself drifting around his community as a spirit. He can’t be seen by anyone but he can somehow make a connection to animals and birds.
Nick observes Annie’s life and tries to reach out to her from the spirit world. He thinks he can use her to somehow reconnect with his body. Annie is a loser who goes from being a cold-blooded killer to being a saint of sorts. Or at least the movie tries to make you think that way.
The point of the movie is never clear and the pretentious way in which it is all presented makes you lose interest early on. The actors are all good in their roles but good acting is generally not sufficient to make a movie entertaining.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
The main question this movie raises is why – as in why was this movie made. It doesn’t entertain and it doesn’t amuse. It doesn’t educate and it doesn’t touch the emotions. It is just a silly story about spirits and about life and death. It is based on a Danish film so maybe this sort of hooey played out better in Europe than in the United States.
Chatwin, Levieva and Harden all try to make their roles believable and in some cases sympathetic but to no avail. “The Invisible” has a plot you can see right through, and the entertainment value fades away before the first third of the movie is over.
I scored “The Invisible” a transparent 4 out of 10.
