It was never my intention to watch all of these films, fuck, I would've been happy not watching ANY of them but simply having the DVD at my house with the option to watch them. But I was in a weird mood last night, I poured myself an oatmeal stout, and I put on Invisible Agent, chosen at random from the DVD set.
I haven't seen anything old in a really long time. I realize that I've been marathoning 70's films, I've been slamming down slashers like they're going out of style (and truly, aren't they?) and I've been having fun with recent films. I haven't gone back to the black and white, or the 40's especially, in a long motherfucking time. So this was nice to have a quick, fun, simple film, right towards the end of the original "golden age" of horror.
This was the fourth in the Invisible Man series, at this point we had seen the Invisible Man, Invisible Man Returns, the Invisible Woman, and now this. In this, we have the supposed grandson of the original Invisible Man who is now in hiding, and in the beginning he's tracked down by government agents, trying to get the invisible formula. We're at war, see, and the Nazis are up to no good. We need to infiltrate behind enemy lines, and only an invisible man can do it. Invisible Man Frank Raymond quickly agrees, and barely 15 minutes into the movie he's already invisible and parachuting in over Nazi Germany!
I had a thought as I was walking to work today, that in a way this is the Marvel movie of it's day. No wonder Universal tried to reboot the classic monster series again! This is quite literally taking the established character, who'd had a origin movie and maybe a sequel or two, and then you're pitting him against a superpowered villain. In this case it's Nazis instead of say Thanos, but the construct is pretty much the same.
Invisible Agent is pretty slow, and it relies heavily on gimmick and eye candy, but then so does the Marvel cinematic universe. We watch in spellbound glee as a cup of coffee drinks itself, as clothes get put on a person we can't see. We wonder, when anyone's talking to him, where he is. Every time a door is opened we don't know if the Invisible Man came in, or left, etc. It's for sure kitschy, but it is fun nonetheless. Even in the effects driven world of 2018, where a movie like Aquaman comes out and they probably built a total of three sets and the rest was all CGI, Agent still has it's draw.
At less than 80 minutes, Agent flies by, and even with a lot of unnecessary dialogue, it still flows by quick as a waterfall. It's harmless fun, extremely of it's time, and fun in that way. I'll give it 3.5 stars! Why not right.
Oh! I do want to mention one thing. Again, product of it's time. They have Peter Lorre, a decidedly white man, playing a Japanese general in the film. And seriously, I didn't even know until the very end he was supposed to be Japanese. I mean, I know it was commonplace at the time to do this sort of casting, but sometimes they'd use makeup, or do other terrible effects like that. Nothing. They just thought with maybe a very ambiguous accent people would think he was Japanese. And honestly, it's horrible. It's ridiculous. But hey, 1942. I guess that's how it goes.
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