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The Invisible

Score: 90%
Rating: PG-13
Publisher: Buena Vista
Region: 1
Media: Blu-ray/1
Running Time: 102 Mins.
Genre: Drama
Audio: English 5.1 Uncompressed (48
           kHz/24-bit) English, French,
           Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish

Features:

  • Feature Audio Commentary With Director David S. Goyer and Writer Christine Roum
  • Feature Audio Commentary With Writer Mick Davis
  • Music Video: 30 Seconds to Mars - "The Kill"
  • Music Video: Sparta - "Taking Back Control"
  • 13 Minutes of Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary

The Invisible is a pretty good tale of young literary hopeful, Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin). As high school graduation looms close, he has decided to run away to London in order to take part in a writing school. He has asked his mother, but her plans for him involve law, not writing. So despite his mother's wishes (or maybe in spite of them), he plans to jump on a plane in a couple of days and leave without any real notice.

His best friend, Pete (Chris Marquette), is the only one that knows about his plans and encourages him to follow his dreams. Unfortunately, Pete isn't the most level-headed kid out there. Just before the opening of the film, he purchased a new cell phone from a school thug, Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva), but hasn't quite coughed up the money yet. When Nick comes to his rescue with the money, he and Annie get into a fight (she seems to not like this kid who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth).

We soon find out that Annie's life has been rough since her mother died and she is left to raise her little brother in a house with her drunken dad and deadbeat step-mother. The other major complication in her life is the out-on-parole Marcus, her boyfriend. When the pair is out for a night on the town, they steal a car and Annie breaks into a jewelry store. When she refuses to let Marcus handle the stolen jewelry, he decides she has gotten out of control and calls the cops on her.

When Annie gets out, she decides that Pete must have been the one to rat on her and starts to get her payback. Unfortunately, Pete is definitely not the strong-willed person he needs to be and claims Nick is the one who turned her in (after all, he should be on a plane to London). What Pete didn't know is that Nick's mother found the tickets and confronted him about them. Nick decides to blow off his trip and, consequently, ends up in town when Annie and her gang come after him. The group beats him nearly to death, and thinking he is dead, dumps his body. When Pete threatens to go to the cops, Annie convinces him he is just as guilty as them and makes Pete her new, reluctant, lackey.

But Nick's not quite dead yet; he definately thinks he is though, especially since everybody seems to be ignoring him. When he realizes that he's still alive, he decides to haunt Annie and torment her until she goes to the cops. Throughout the movie, Annie slowly realizes that she is being tormented by him, and starts to feel like he is right next to her. The indirect-interaction between the two characters is a really interesting way to grow both characters, and it worked really well. By the end of the movie, I felt like I understood both Nick and Annie really well.

Speaking of the ending, of the many ways The Invisible could have concluded, I think the way it did is about the only one I would have expected. This film doesn't have some outrageous perfect happy ending, but it isn't so dark and depressing as to turn the audience off. I think the way it concludes is the best for this type of story. I can't really get into any more detail than that without revealing the end, but I'll just say, it could have been a lot worse.

While the disc has quite a few special features, there aren't any on here that can't also be found on the DVD. Well, none beyond the built-in Blu-ray features like Seamless Menus, that is. That isn't to say the special features it has aren't good. The main feature of note are the many deleted scenes. A lot of these scenes added some depth to the movie and some of the characters, but quite frankly, they all needed to be removed. There are a series of scenes that develop a possible female interest, but since that character is basically forgotten after Nick is attacked, her character is all but useless. There is another removed scene that was from the trailer, where Nick is talking to a guy in a coma and he realizes that he is still alive. After seeing The Invisible, I much prefer the way Nick realizes his state over the deleted scene. The version used in the film is much better and, quite frankly, makes Nick seem smarter.

Truth be told, as much as I enjoyed The Invisible and recommend seeing it, if not buying it, I'm not really convinced of the need to buy or see it in Blu-ray. Like many films that are coming out in HD quality these days, this isn't really a movie that needs to be in high-def. Basically, if you are still on the HD DVD/Blu-ray fence, and you are really interested in buying this movie, you might as well get it on DVD because there isn't really anything about the Blu-ray version of this film to make it a better purchase.



-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

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