MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN is a film directed by John Carpenter. The script was written by Robert Collector, Dana Olsen, and William Goldman, based on a novel by H.F. Saint. It stars Chevy Chase, Darryl Hannah, Sam Neil. Rated PG-13, for mature humor, mild profanity.
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN is an agreeable, likeable, barely-there piece of special-effects fluff. It's entertaining but it leaves you wanting to see a real movie, with some substance.
Certainly, this is Chevy Chase's most engaging and energetic performance in years, although it cannot compare with the screwball comedy-mystery he made with Goldie Hawn in the Seventies, except that both films are set in San Francisco. And we get to see him briefly nude twice, which is a pretty high ratio of occurrence for a film in which we can't see him at all half the time. Chevy's character could have been quite interesting: he's a non-ambitious yuppie, a coaster who makes money despite himself, a b.s. artist, whose comfortable apoliticalness should be more challenged by his predicament.
The thing about this Invisible Man movie that is supposed to make it interesting is its depiction what it would really be like, what would be the unexpected disadvantages. Except as a vehicle for the Industrial Light and Magic magic and for the extended chase that makes up most of the movie, this psychological (and physical) dynamic is given a pretty short shrift.
The less said about Daryl Hannah the better.
Sam Neil, as the heavy, gets to turn in a likeably vile performance. Ever since the Garden of Eden, the bad guy's been stealing the show and MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN is no exception. Of course, his viciousness and duplicity and ruthlessness are completely unexplained as character traits. There are just givens, that is, he's a spook and that's all we need to know to understand him. Too bad.
Carpenter, who was hired on the strength of his STARMAN, does some wonderful intercutting of Chevy visible and invisible to the audience. The effects are pretty good, but frankly they are not convincing, that is, they never fail to look like effects. Indeed some of them are amateurishly clumsy, such as the gun held to Neil's head and a headless Chevy running through a park. The best is the bubble gum bit and that's about two minutes into the movie. Chevy's voice-over hints at a darker vision, probably inherited from the novel, but Carpenter lets it slide every time. Goldman's (et al.) dialog is consistently intelligent, but the ending is abrupt and screams sequelitis.
I might be moved to recommend MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN to you at matinee prices, but really it all so pointless, isn't it?
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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