RETRO REVIEW
John Carpenter is highly identified with horror from films like Halloween, The Fog and The Thing. However, he has been known to direct films in other genres – romance (Starman), adventure (Escape from New York) and action comedy (Big Trouble in Little China). He even made a biographical miniseries on the life of Elvis. However, in 1992, he teamed up with “Saturday Night Live” and National Lampoon’s Vacation star Chevy Chase to break from his most well-known genre to create the sci-fi comedy thriller, Memoirs of an Invisible Man. The film would blend creative special effects with suspenseful pursuits but failed to be seen by audiences.
Stock analyst Nick Halloway (Chevy Chase) is a guy who likes to keep to himself and will do anything to avoid people. He prefers to remain alone during social events and does not have many friends. However, one of his only friends, George Talbot (Michael McKean), introduces him to a woman named Alice Monroe (Daryl Hannah) at dinner. They both instantly fall for each other and make out in the ladies’ room, but Alice has to leave. She and Nick make a date, but Nick is so crestfallen that he has already lost someone he truly connected with that he begins to drink heavily.
Nick forgets that he has to go to a shareholders’ meeting early in the morning at a local laboratory, Magnascopics and shows up immensely hungover. Leaving in the middle of the presentation to find a bathroom, Nick stops by a computer control room where he asks a scientist for directions. After pointing him in the right direction, the scientist knocks his cup of coffee onto a console, setting off a hardware meltdown. Everyone evacuates the building except for the otherwise oblivious Nick who has wandered into an executive’s sauna room and takes a nap. When he wakes up, Nick finds himself and much of the building invisible due to the accident. Screaming for help, Nick is taken into the custody of ruthless CIA agent David Jenkins (Sam Neill) who plans to use him for ulterior motives. Not wanting to be trapped as a freak experiment, Nick escapes and goes on the run.
Constantly chased by Jenkins and his goons, Nick tries to navigate through the world as an invisible man but finds it a lot harder than previously expected. He locates the head scientist of Magnascopics, Dr. Bernard Wachs (Jim Norton), but Wachs has no idea what happened or how it happened. He goes to Alice for help, who agrees to get him out of the country so Jenkins can stop chasing him but Jenkins eventually catches up to him. Nick has to use his newfound ability to protect Alice and keep himself out of trouble.
I can see how some would wonder how this film would fit into John Carpenter’s filmography (it features really none of his signatures – none of his stars and no self-composed score) or even Chevy Chase’s filmography as the film is not much of a comedy (or at least not anywhere near as funny as Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation or Fletch). However, one has to admit that Chase is actually trying to branch out and not just be funny. The effects are surprisingly good by 1992 standards (especially if one sees “The Making of Memoirs of an Invisible Man”), but I can’t ignore that 20 years earlier a Disney film Now You See Him, Now You Don’t was able to pull off nearly the same visuals but on a cheaper budget and to a broader audience. Daryl Hannah, of course, looks stunning in this film (as she did in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s) but her character is barely constructed and is simply there to look good and be the one person to help Nick out. She herself would do a special effects-centered film in the HBO TV movie remake of Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman. However, we all know that Sam Neill (who does play a genuinely good villain in this film) would go on to a film that completely redefined special effects with Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man isn’t an awful film, but it certainly could be better. There are really two types of invisibility films: the psychopathic thriller (The Invisible Man and Hollow Man) or there are wish-fulfillment comedies (Now You See Him, Now You Don’t and Ghost Dad). This film tries to play it both ways with lackluster results – either make a straight comedy or a straight thriller. Rarely do the two vastly different genres work together; a notable example would be the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film Silver Streak. Still, the effects are quite interesting to watch, the actors are decent and the story is conventional. John Carpenter and Chevy Chase: an once-in-a-lifetime combination that doesn’t achieve the amazing possibilities. Like Nick Halloway, this slightly comedic adventure isn’t easy to see.
NOTE: Yesterday was John Carpenter's birthday! Happy Birthday, John Carpenter! Thanks for reading - Zack
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