The Invisible Man in 2020 is a remake of a film called The Invisible Man from 1933, which itself is an adaptation of the book The Invisible Man written in 1897 by H.G. Wells. The 2020 film shifts the focus from the titular Invisible Man, to his victim, Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss). The Invisible Man (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is mainly used as a tension-building device, with the camera lingering on empty spaces, making the audience wonder if the villain is actually present or not.
Remakes are a contentious subject in movies today. They are films that make a huge amount of money, but rarely do they garner any critical acclaim. The subject of remakes may be even more far reaching if you consider remaking other mediums, such as comics or books as film remakes as well. I can overlook them, as the medium of the written word is vastly different from a motion picture, each with their own strengths and drawbacks. What I am focusing on is the remaking of another film, as they are easier to compare.
The Invisible Man is the perfect film to attempt to remake. Disregarding the idea of a “Dark Universe” film franchise that the Universal production studio has attempted (which this film has nothing to do with), The Invisible Man is still a recognizable character, but is so far removed from today by time that many film goers will have very little expectations of it to be similar to the original. I, myself, do not know anyone that has seen the original film. And while the original Invisible Man is held in high regard, it is not a film like Casablanca or Gone With the Wind, where they are still widely viewed today.
This is not the case for most filmic remakes. The vast majority of remakes are of films that are so recognizable, and were made so recently that almost everyone has seen it. Disney’s remakes are the most egregious of these. Beauty and the Beast was first released in 1991 and was remade in 2017. The Lion King was made in 1994 and was remade in 2019. And these are not just any films. They are some of the most beloved films of the decade and the Lion King was the second highest grossing film at the time of its release.
These films are iconic and any remake would have to behold to the scenes and moments that make those films iconic. The characters, songs, scenes and even general structure of these remakes must be strictly adherent to the original’s, or the filmmaker risks angering fans. Could you imagine the remake of Beauty and the Beast without the song number Be Our Guest? It technically can be cut from the film with minimal effort, as it does not strictly move the plot along or bring forth too much new information that cannot be conveyed through dialogue.
Now should Be Our Guest be cut? Not necessarily. But the point is that it handcuffs the filmmaker. One music number does not change too much, but all of these moments add up and mean that there can be less and less that the filmmaker is allowed to change and make the film its own. Could the Lion King remake be made Hakuna Matata, or even the characters of Pumbaa, Timone, or Rafiki? It would be unthinkable now, but in 60 years from now? Maybe not.
As stated previously, The Invisible Man (2020) does not focus on the Invisible Man, rather his victim of Cecilia. Now, I do not really know the atmosphere around the original Invisible Man movies, but I could see it as big of a change as if the new Mulan film be about Captain Li Shang, while Mulan takes a more secondary role. Again, this may not be a good idea, but with enough separation, it could be an idea that can be entertained.
Mulan is possibly the best idea for a remake of a Disney animated movie. If the trailers and all the information is correct, this film is very different from the original Disney film. There is no in-universe singing like in the animated version and no talking dragon. This is clearly a good move. People will lament and moan about the loss of Mushu and the well-remembered musical numbers, but at least this film, by dropping those important features, give it a reason to exist. If those changes are enough to justify its existence is up to the audience, but it is impossible to tell without seeing the movie.
And that is the final great aspect of the Invisible Man. Not only does it change the characters, setting and tone of the original film, it does it in a way that completely changes the meaning of the film. This new film is a metaphor for abusive relationships, and it works on multiple levels. How describing a beloved figure as abusive can be as difficult as convincing people that there is an invisible person, and that the impact of the abuse extends even when the abuser is not there, as if they were invisible and watching your every move.
It is similar to the remake of Judge Dredd in 2012. It strengthens the narrative of poverty and the question of authority and the police. But what Dredd has over all of the remakes previously mentioned is that the original Judge Dredd is not a great film. All these films, from The Invisible Man to Mulan are all held in high regard as great films. Judge Dredd, however, is mostly remembered by Sylvester Stallone’s strange performance, and not as any film of particularly high quality. In reality, these should be the films we should be remaking. Judge Dredd was a movie that had some good ideas, but the execution was lacking. Dredd took those ideas and expanded and improved on them to make a much better movie. We don’t need another Lion King, and it would be a Herculean effort to make a remake that would be better than the original, and I feel that the effort would be best put to original ideas.
Make no mistake, The Invisible Man is not a perfect film. It is not even that great of a movie. There are some major plotholes, or at least moments that take some big leaps in logic to accept them. I also was slightly disappointed in the presentation of the film after the prologue. The beginning of the film is set in the shared house of Cecilia and Adrian, the Invisible Man. The house is massive and sparse, which really drives home the feeling of isolation that Cecilia is feeling and has a very strong atmosphere to it. However, outside of that house, I find that the atmosphere does dip in quality. There are a lot of the shots where the camera is slightly off-center on the characters, suggesting that there is another presence that no one can see. However, as Cecilia is being isolated and becoming more alone, it was hard for me to feel that isolation. When everything else in the film is so effectively communicated, I felt that this isolation was communicated fairly poorly. I think that it would have done well to take a page from It Comes at Night or Hereditary, where the films both have claustrophobic feel simply by the way the camera shots are framed, and I thought that personality was lacking in the second half of the film.
But outside of all those things, Elizabeth Moss gives a great performance, and the through line of domestic abuse gives the film a strong feeling of importance, and it is timely for today. Also, and maybe most importantly, it is a remake that relies very little on the original film and it changes the original story to better reflect the time that it was made. So, even if it was not perfect I would take it over a hundred remakes of the Lion King.
The Sensations of Storytelling 