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Date Posted: 16:50:58 06/21/01 Thu
Author: Griff
Subject: Here's another review for you to ignore! It's crap cos I couldn't remember much about the damn thing, it was so forgettable.


THE INVISIBLE MAN’S REVENGE


We’re four movies into the Invisible Man cycle and it’s pretty clear that inspiration has, like the eponymous character, faded into nothingness. This is a long way from the quality of the first film, which had real magic and an almost tangible atmosphere; there are a few familiar effects here and an unwise attempt to reprise the comedy element of the original, to no avail. Perfectly watchable in an I’m-bored-but-it-could-be-worse kind of way, it’s a disappointingly bland effort.

After a pre-invisibility segment, a repeat of the bandages and glasses routine and the obligatory peel-off, it soon becomes clear that this is a rather desperate film with nothing to add; it’s nothing more than a thin B-movie with invisibility as a gimmick, with none of the artistry of James Whale’s film. The story is completely underdeveloped apart from the convoluted revenge plot – criminal Rob Griffin (Jon Hall) was left for dead in the jungle by his supposed friends Jasper (Lester Matthews) and his wife (Gale Songard) some years earlier. They agreed to split some diamonds and now he’s back for his share – and he wants their daughter too. Stumbling upon a doctor experimenting with invisibility, Griffin sees a way to exact his revenge.

Okay, so it doesn’t exactly sound like the twistiest plot ever, but the writers get it across in the most leaden and long-winded way possible and clog the movie up with it. With so much standing around and talking from the main characters, actors slightly less lacklustre than this lot would have been nice, but there ya go. Rob’s new pal Herbert (Leon Errol) trundles through a lot of unfunny antics, like the pointless darts game in which an invisible Rob aims for the bullseye every time; the spectators are amazed more at Herbert’s accuracy than the fact that the darts are moving at about three metres an hour, wobbling as they go. There are a few boggle-eyed cockneys scattered about as well, but they’re no match for Una O’Connor and E.E. Clive.

I don’t know if all the sequels are this lame because I haven’t seen ‘em, but this one is a right duffer. I was really curious to see this just to see what one of the other Invisible Man films is like, and sadly it falls victim to Universal’s policy of dragging a series on long past its natural life in order to scrape a few more bucks into their bulging coffers. On the bright side, there are some decent invisibility effects, like when Rob dunks his head into a fish tank or covers his face in flour. But this really has nothing to do with the first film any more; the villains shares a name with Claude Rains’s character, and that’s about it. What’s the point of that?



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