Hollywood loves to ruin movies before they even release. Whether it’s filling up films with “diversity” or completely undermining the plot by spoiling it all in the trailer, you can always count on Hollywood to destroy any potential fun you might have had at the movie theater. Universal’s remake of The Invisible Man seems to fit the profile to a ‘T’, both in terms of checking off the boxes on “diversity” and ruining any potential plot twists by giving them all away in the trailer itself.
It’s amazing because the trailer only clocks in at just two and a half minutes, and yet it manages to introduce us to all the key characters, the initial plot hook, the swerve, and then the finale. You can check out the trailer below.
So, we have the evil straight, white male; the innocent lead female just trying to get away from the evil, straight white male; we have the “noble” minority friend; we have the cops who don’t believe the lead female; and then we have the lead-up that makes it seem like she’s crazy but it turns out she’s not, and that her boyfriend really is evil and invisible.
After she’s admitted to the psyche ward the main character lady is stalked by her evil invisible boyfriend, where he proceeds to kill and maim the people in the hospital, leading up to a final showdown where she eventually begins stabbing on him. Lame.
It’s amazing that they managed to take an interesting concept and completely dilute it with [current year] nonsense.
As many of the commenters pointed out, the film trailer could have worked out well had they just stuck with toying with the idea of whether the chick was going crazy or not, but no… instead they had to turn it into yet another female empowerment film.
Snore.
It’s also funny because they managed to completely deflate any interest in the film the longer the trailer went on, going from an interesting premise to a completely predictable action-slasher.
I also find it funny that way back in 2003 there was a Canadian short film from Jesse McKeown starring Brendan Fletcher called The Big Charade, which told its entire story through a five minute trailer, yet still managed to keep some plot elements behind the curtain enough to make it seem like a film worth watching.
I remember after the short film aired on ZeD TV, host Ziya Tong quipped that eventually movies would get to a point where they would just be trailer advertisements instead of full length feature films. I guess, in some ways, she was right given that remakes like The Invisible Man don’t have to be seen in their entirety for you to know exactly what happens.
Worse yet, in this new remake instead of the invisible dude lounging out at female locker rooms or stalking hot neighbors, or becoming a locomotive sperm donator at nude beaches, he decides to loom over the shoulder of his post-wall girlfriend. I can only imagine Hollow Man must be shaking his head in shame.
This abomination of a film is scheduled to debut in theaters starting February, 2020.