Review Roundup: Elisabeth Moss Shines in Timely The Invisible Man Reboot
This Friday, writer/director Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man hits theaters, a reboot of Universal Pictures’ classic 1933 monster movie, starring Elisabeth Moss as, Cecilia Kass, a woman being stalked by a man nobody can see. Cecilia flees an abusive relationship with the brutal scientist Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) in the middle of the night. Far from escaping Adrian’s sociopathy, Cecilia now finds herself in an increasingly terrifying situation. Shortly after she leaves him, she’s told that Oliver committed suicide. He leaves her $5 million dollars in a settlement, but there’s a catch; she can only keep the money if she is deemed mentally competent. Quite an odd caveat! Yet this mentally competent caveat becomes the central issue when Cecilia starts being stalked by a man no one can see.
The reviews are now out for Whannell’s take on The Invisible Man, and they speak to a film in which the writer/director and his star have fashioned something new—and timely—from the DNA of the Claude Rains-led 1933 classic and the original novel by H.G. Wells. Currently sitting at 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, The Invisible Man offers viewers a reason to leave the house in late February.
We’ve got a spoiler-free roundup for you here:
I thought #TheInvisibleMan was terrific. Can’t stop thinking about it. The way Whannell adapts Wells’s book to create a different kind of monster is genius. Emotional, tense and technically SO slick. That score, too. See it on a big screen and feel your seat rumble…! pic.twitter.com/p3pzkm61Jo
— Amy West (@TV_amyy) February 25, 2020
Review: #TheInvisibleMan Is So Good It’s Scary, And It’s Universal’s Best “Classic Monsters” Movie In 20 Years via @Forbes by @ScottMendelson https://t.co/tQAwkktiot
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) February 25, 2020
Philip De Semlyen, Time Out: “It’s a #MeToo horror film that couldn’t be any more timely if it shuffled into a courtroom with a Zimmer frame.”
Angie Han, Mashable: “A solid thriller with some nifty effects, a bunch of well-earned scares, and a riveting lead performance.”
Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “The Invisible Man” is devious fun, with a message that’s organic enough to hit home: that in a toxic relationship, what you see is what you get – but what gets to you is what you don’t see.
Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: “[A]s stressed, and distressed, as Cecilia is most of the time, Moss provides a core of inner strength that invites investment in her abilities and, ultimately, belief in her survival.”
The Invisible Man hits theaters on February 28, 2020.
Featured image: Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass in “The Invisible Man,” written and directed by Leigh Whannell. Photo Credit: Universal Pictures © 2020 Universal Pictures
