John Carpenter and his most of his fans seem to be in agreement that 1992’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man is the worst film of his prime era. Most people seem to define that era as ending with In the Mouth of Madness two years later. I recently rewatched Memoirs and, while it is far from the best in Carpenter’s oeuvre, I found it to be a solid and enjoyable picture.
In what was Carpenter’s only film for hire, Chevy Chase plays an executive who is accidentally rendered invisible during a demonstration at a high-tech company. Daryl Hannah is given little to do as the love interest. Sam Neill plays a diabolical CIA agent who is salivating over the opportunity to do some vivisection on Chase in order to learn the secret of invisibility.
Behind-in-scenes, many in the cast and crew apparently wanted to perform vivisection on Chase, but their reason was because of allegedly appalling behavior during the production of this film. There have been many horror stories over the years about his inappropriate behavior on numerous productions, so that didn’t come as a surprise to me. Plus, he primarily plays characters who are aloof, condescending jerks. Got to go with what you know, right?
Fortunately, what has been described as a poisonous atmosphere behind-the-scenes doesn’t taint what ended up on the screen. This is a light, breezy action-comedy that is well-made and better than I thought it would be. Make that better than I remember it being, as I know I saw this as a critics’ screening back in the day, and I couldn’t recall a single thing from it a few decades later.
The special effects are especially noteworthy, both in inventiveness and execution. Probably my favorite of these is what happens to the building where the accident happens. Imagine an explosion where anything touched by the blast turns invisible. What remains is a building where numerous walls and objects are only partly invisible. You can follow the line from one object to another, tracing the path of the invisibility wave.
In one regard, I can understand why Carpenter’s fans are dismissive towards this movie, as it does seem out of the place in the canon of his work. On the other hand, it is a decent picture regardless of who made it. Not even Chevy Chase could spoil that.
Dir: John Carpenter
Starring Chevy Chase, Daryll Hannah, Sam Neill
Watched on Kanopy