In my review of Parts: The Clonus Horror, I posited that more than a few people have wondered what it would be like to have a clone of themselves. But I wouldn't be surprised if a larger number of people had imagined what they'd do if they could turn invisible. While I doubt people having the ability to become invisible will happen in any of our lifetimes, it's definitely something that can send the imagination running wild.
Invisible people have been a part of pop culture for seemingly forever. But the concept was perhaps most famously depicted in the 1933 movie The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains. Based on the H.G. Wells novella from 1897, The Invisible Man was another entry into the batch of classic horror movies starring what's since been labeled the "Universal Monsters." The movie would inspire countless imitators, one of which I remember really enjoying when I was a kid. The movie in question was John Carpenter's Memoirs of an Invisible Man, itself based on a novel written in 1987 by H.F. Saint. I liked the movie a lot in my adolescent years, so when I saw it on HBO recently, I figured I would check it out and see if I liked it as much as I did back then. So what say we dig in, huh?
Meet Nick Halloway (Chevy Chase), a stock analyst so disenfranchised with his life and his job that he spends every waking second trying to avoid his responsibilities. Stuck attending a boring shareholders' meeting with a nasty hangover, Nick sneaks out and tries to catch a nap in an empty room. But thanks to a freak accident in one of the building's laboratories, Nick is caught in the ensuing blast and is rendered completely invisible.
His presence is discovered by the technicians responding to the accident, and word of an invisible man catches the attention of shady CIA operative David Jenkins (Sam Neill). Jenkins sees the potential military applications of an invisible secret agent, but fearing the possibility of being a lab rat for the rest of his life, Nick flees. His only help is Alice Monroe (Daryl Hannah), a woman Nick recently met through a mutual friend and quickly fell for. But her assistance may not be enough, as Jenkins and his goons keep moving in closer and closer.
When my family first got HBO in the middle of the '90s, I remember discovering Memoirs of an Invisible Man and thinking that it wasn't that bad a movie. It wasn't great, but I thought it was an okay little flick. Revisiting it as an adult almost twenty years after its release, the movie's mediocrity is more readily apparent. To its credit, it's a watchable movie that does show a few flashes of potential greatness. But there are so many things that it just doesn't get right, and that really hinders the whole project.
Sitting in the director's chair is legendary horror/sci-fi filmmaker John Carpenter. I enjoy a lot of Carpenter's work, but Memoirs of an Invisible Man marks a shift in his career. He'd reached what was arguably the peak of his creativity during the '70s and '80s, but once the '80s transitioned into the '90s and Memoirs was made, it all started going downhill. Sure, he came close to regaining his previous glory with In the Mouth of Madness, his criminally underrated homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but Carpenter's movies from the '90s on haven't really been all that great.
But we're here to talk about Memoirs of an Invisible Man, so let's stick with that. Though I rag on the movie, Carpenter's direction isn't that bad. His work is actually what makes the film watchable. Even when his movies aren't that good, there's no denying that Carpenter has boatloads of talent. And though Memoirs isn't among his best work, he's still obviously trying as best he can. Unfortunately, Carpenter seemingly can't keep the movie's tone consistent. The movie comes off like it's supposed to be a serious character study, but finds itself bouncing around with romantic and comedic scenes that muddles what I'm assuming was the movie's original identity. It feels like Carpenter was forced to deal with meddling studio executives who wanted a movie with a broader appeal.
I'll get more into that later, but I will say that for all of the movie's flaws, Carpenter at least tries to make things work. It helps that the invisibility effects are good. There are a few moments where they aren't 100% effective, but these instances are few and far between. The effects are really, really good, to the point that they're practically the star of the movie. Carpenter does cheat quite a bit by (more often than not) actually showing Chevy Chase and having everyone else on set pretending they can't see him, but I can forgive that. I imagine that it would be hard to form an emotional connection with a character if they're practically a disembodied voice.
But let's go back to that whole "executive meddling" discussion for a second, this time in regards to the script. Credited to Robert Collector, Dana Olsen, and William Goldman, the script seems like it could have made for one hell of a movie. I mean, I think the movie would have turned out for the better had things been done differently. Drop most of the comedy, rein in the romance, and make it simply a character study about a man who spent his whole life hiding from the world and has now been put in a situation where he desperately longs to be found. That would have been a great movie.
And in watching the movie that was eventually released, I can see that Collector, Olsen, and Goldman were trying to write the movie that I wanted to see. But the inconsistencies in its tone, the continued bouncing between drama to comedy to romance and back again, causes the movie to be unsure of its own identity. If the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, then the whole thing suffers.
It even causes the cast to suffer too. From everything I've read, the movie was intended to be a vanity project for Chevy Chase. The story I heard is that Chase had wanted to use it as a bridge into more serious acting jobs after spending his entire career working in comedy. And I'll confess that I did struggle to buy Chase in a serious role because of how long he's been a comedian. His performance here isn't perfect, but considering that this was his first real attempt at broadening his acting horizons, he's not bad either. In retrospect, I'm not sure if Chase was the right guy for the role, but I honestly can't say he was awful.
Daryl Hannah, on the other hand, didn't really do much to impress me. She seemed way too low-key for my tastes. And I can't say I thought she and Chase had a very believable romantic chemistry together, either. Their whole affair came off to me as being a bit tepid and dull. The way their story was written was lame enough to begin with, but Chase and Hannah simply didn't do anything to make me care.
And last but not least is Sam Neill, who I still enjoyed despite having the feeling that he was playing just another paint-by-numbers sleazeball government agent. It's a character that's been done a million times in a million movies, but Neill does just enough to make it work.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a movie that could have been awesome. It could have been one of the best sci-fi flicks of the '90s. But with less-than-impressive performances and a general inability to decide just what the hell it wants to do with itself, it ends up being disappointing and sadly rather forgettable. I wanted to like the movie, but it was too hard for me to overcome the huge mountain of mediocrity that it builds up. I don't normally call for movies to remade, but I'd actually be okay if somebody wanted to do a remake of this particular little trainwreck. Maybe then Memoirs of an Invisible Man could be awesome.
Final Rating: **
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