Fear the Invisible Man

Wow!, was this a borefest.

The movie's top focus is the Victorian era, trying its best to act as it belongs there, with the buildings, wardrobe, accents, even the weather.

The main issue, The Invisible Man is genuinely a side kick, that reappears every now and then as the lead character takes charge.

It is a bold move to call this Fear the Invisible Man, as for one, of course we can't see him and two, we don't really get to see him, hear him, follow his character arc. This is one of those movies that put an ex famous actor on the cover that makes a cameo and then leaves. Same thing here, the movie uses a good bait and waits to see what it got hooked.

And the difference between this and an Asylum production, is quite small really. But more than anything, I kid you not, it is truly, truly, boring. Almost nothing happens, because as I said before, the movie's focus is it's surroundings, not characters but dialogue, not people but old clothes, no story but something to fill up close to 2 hours.

Not recommended. Definitely and well I guess, literally, nothing to see here.

Cheers!

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 2023 thriller titled "Fear the Invisible Man" prior to sitting down to watch it. And I had no idea what I was in for here, so I have to admit that I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations. Which, in turn, meant that director Paul Dudbridge had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

However, the storyline in "Fear the Invisible Man", as written by Philip Daay, Helena Gergelova and Monika Gergelova was sort of mundane, bland and rather uneventful. And for a thriller, that doesn't exactly spell top notch entertainment. The movie was sort of lacking a drive, and it felt like director Paul Dudbridge was just filming the thing whilst still in neutral gear.

Yet, I still managed to sit through all 100 minutes that the movie ran for, though I have to say that I was not really particularly entertained by what transpired on the screen.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble, except for actor David Hayman (playing Wicksteed), and he was barely in the movie at all. The acting performances in the movie were actually fair enough, despite the fact that the actors and actresses had surprisingly little to work with in terms of script, dialogue and characters.

Visually, however, then I will say that the CGI effects in the movie were actually surprising good for a movie of this type. And while the movie didn't make a lot of use of special effects, whatever effects were there were actually helping to make the movie a bit more interesting.

"Fear the Invisible Man" is not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, as there was hardly sufficient contents to support this first viewing. Nor is it a movie that I will recommend to fans of the thriller genre.

My rating of "Fear the Invisible Man" lands on a three out of ten stars.

After the fantastic opening scene this quickly descends into total boredom. The first issue I noticed was that the dialogue quality was pretty terrible, especially for the invisible man which sounded like it was recorded in the bathroom and not at the location. The voice acting was good though. In fact overall I had no problem with the acting overall. The effects are 10% incredible, 50% adequate and 40% a bit of a mess. There are some minor plot holes and nonsensical character motivations like almost everything the detective does. The production quality is mostly very good, the locations and costumes are really excellent and the cinematography is faultless, if a little uninspired. Technically the only issue is the awful dialogue quality and some of the ADR is probably the worst I have ever heard in anything ever. The real issues that make this film so bad is that it lacks atmosphere and it's really boring. After the start nothing happens. Even the ending is a non-event. I'll end by comparing this to some other films: For similar story but with good pacing and characters watch Hollow Man (2000), for great practical effects and relatability watch The Entity (1982), for great atmosphere and mystery watch The Others (2001) and for a character driven story watch The Invisible Man (2020).

Let's start the review - some of this film is exceptional, the period feel, the locations, the cutting, the costumes, the set dressings, but the acting is awful. A shambolic borefest populated largely by rank amateur actors who should seriously look at their 'true' job prospects before inflicting themselves onscreen. The lead woman,I won't name her as she deserves no recognition whatsoever, who plays the heroine, the widow who prefers red to black in her mourning costumes, and a change of costume in every scene (costly) in this mess, if I can call her lead woman, s a shrieky voiced ham who misses every cue and acts (if you can call it that) as if no other actors are present in every scene she appears in (get back to the day job Mrs, acting ain't for you) , which indeed, is to a certain extent true, as her companion in this rubbish is invisible through most of the film. Mike Beckingham plays the invisible man invisibly, his attempts to deliver the strangulated dialogue in the scenes where he is supposed to be there, but not there (he's invisible) are mournful. A career as a road sweeper beckons. As for the actor who plays the 'colonel', Wayne Gordon, well... did anyone tell him what movie he was actually in??? His delivery is like someone trying and failing for an audition in 'Spooks' - dreadful! Hopelessly miscast and hopelessly lost in his own self esteem as an actor, (a graduate from the McDonald's school of acting - a flat white and a cheeseburger please Wayne) are the two descriptions that spring to mind. Moving on to the veteran actor David Hayman's brief appearance in this mess - why David, why? Why did you get top billing, your fee, your name, were you an 'angel' financing this farrago of a film? Do tell! Are you that desperate for work? Shame on you! Choose your parts better next time luv ok? I won't mention the rest of the cast, I hope the pay check they got for this was worth the humiliation of actually appearing in it, Nuff said. Another dud from 'director' Paul Dudbridge! Bin it, don't buy it!

The costumes? The moment of time, The accent, Lots are revealed from a handwritten notes, the weather, the whole environment is very well done. But as both a cutting edge of becoming invisible and to just do a very impossible task by the invisible man to obtain his journals. Why? It cannot be shared by any means, there's only one single copy. I tried to detach myself from the present but I can't do it, So as I watched about halfway I started googling and I ended up letting the YouTube quickies play while I watched the movie. If I didn't get bored halfway I would have not allowed any distractions obviously but Freebies has got the most boring ads so there you go.