The Invisible Man (1933) Review

"If he gets the rest of them clothes off, we'll never catch him in a thousand years."

-Constable Jaffers

Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) has been doing experiments on himself and finally succeeded in turning himself invisible.  He starts working on an antidote, but a side-effect of his experiments cause Griffin to go insane.  As Jack goes off on a murdering spree, the police do everything in their power to stop them, but will it be enough?  Jack has threatened to murder an old colleague.  Will they be able to catch him before he can follow through?

What Works:

The Invisible Man succeeds largely because of the performance of Claude Rains.  His screen presence is palpable even when he is invisible.  He has a distinct and memorable voice and is very menacing.  He frequently threatens murder and has no problem following through.  Though a lot of the performances is voice-over, Rains does a great job and gives us a delightfully villainous protagonist.

This movie is also surprisingly funny.  It threw me for a loop with an early gag involving a guy in a bar pretending to play the piano.  Most of the humor is slapstick, but it's good slapstick.  At one point, Griffin picks up a police officer and begins swinging him around in a circle.  It was completely unexpected and absolutely hilarious.

The biggest positive I have for this movie is the special effects to make it seem like an invisible man is interacting with various objects.  It's actually really impressive work and I was blown away by how well this movie has aged.  Sure, it's not perfect, but it's still really cool.  There is a lot more invisible chaos in the film than I would have expected and it's always a lot of fun.  Plus we get some nice minautes and surprisingly good disasters with the train crash scene and a really excellent car crash.

What Sucks:

Apart from the Invisible Man, none of the characters in this movie are remotely interesting.  They are all pretty dull and I was never invested in any of them.  The story jumps around between characters dealing with the Invisible Man, first with the villages, then Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan), and finally the police.  The narrative feels a bit jumbled.  It feels less like a movie and more like a series of events happening.  

The worst character of them all is Jenny Hall (Una O'Connor), who is the wife of the inn owner where the Invisible Man stays.  Her characters does a lot of shrieking and screaming.  It's really over-the-top and extremely irritating.

The 3rd act is also pretty anticlimactic.  After seeing Griffin outsmart the police at every turn, he finally gets beaten when he goes to sleep in a barn.   It's a lame way for such an interesting character to go out and he doesn't even get any dialogue in his final stand against the police.  He just kinda gets shot.  For such a compelling character, I wish he had gotten a more memorable end.

Verdict:

The Invisible Man has held up incredibly over 80 years later.  Claude Rains gives a solid performance, the film has a great sense of humor, and the effects are pretty fantastic for its time.  All of the supporting characters are boring and one is extremely irritating.  Plus the 3rd act is anticlimactic, but this movie has still got it going on all these years later.

 7/10: Good