This horror and thriller film, which was released in the United States at the end of February, scored an exaggerated box office score of 20 times the production cost in just one month, and it was still under the impact of the epidemic. For a time, such as "high probability is the highest probability of the year." The best horror film, “Creative Movies with Small Strikes”, has been affixed to this movie. With its box office success, can this movie bear the current more one-sided reputation? I think you can review the movie from two angles with me, and give it a new score in your heart.
The first angle from the film is strong setting for
Looking at several horror/thriller films that have received high attention in the past two years- such as " Escape from the Dead Town" , " Quiet Place" and " Mirage" , one thing these films have in common is the special initial Setting-In "Escape from the Dead Town", white people can graft their minds through brain surgery, boarding and controlling the body of black people; in "Quiet Place", a family lives in the end times under the rule of alien creatures. It is possible to survive without making a sound; in "The Mirage", it is the supernatural phenomenon that triggers the dialogue between characters in different time and space, and the butterfly effect caused allows the male and female protagonist to travel through the parallel time and space of different destinies.
These settings are very common and necessary in most horror/thriller or science fiction movies, because these settings are actually gimmicks or'hooks' in various movies. Many viewers are targeted at this point. Attract to see what kind of story there will be under this setting.
Then this film is no exception. The director has given the male protagonist the identity of a'leading scientist in the field of optics' and set that the character can be invisible by wearing such a high-tech coat developed by him. From the movie, we can also see that the function of this'invisibility cloak' is almost perfect, but although I personally think that this setting is strong, it is also completely acceptable. The water can still be intact after splashing, and what I want to say is that setting aside this point, the director also made another default setting between Cecilia and Adrian's character relationship -that is, in Adrian's eyes, it must be controlled and tortured. The subject is not Cecilia, and as long as he wants, he can insight into the thoughts of people around him and can find them anytime, anywhere
If we look at the two points of “top scientist status” and “secretly developed invisibility cloak” according to ordinary logic: the former means status and wealth are at your fingertips; the latter means superpowers that can wander beyond legal boundaries. In the setting of a character who already possesses such ability, it is actually not reasonable for him to grasp an emotional object to target it. Therefore, in order to make this point, the director gave Adrian a characteristic of "psychological abnormality" to acquiesce in his follow-up. The rationality of a series of actions
Judging from these two places, it is not difficult to find that the setting of the film is more than just a "invisibility cloak", which means that the plot of the film is developed under multiple premises. Such a strong setting has advantages. Obviously-Cecilia and the invisible person's ability contrast will make even the original relatively simple plot highlight a strong conflict and tension. The audience will be easily brought into a victim emotional space in Cecilia. How do they treat her? Escape from interest
But from this point of view, am I opposed to such a strong setting in the film? Is not
To drive the plot down, or to prop up the entire movie, rely on this gimmick or dramatic setting to establish the concept of the script . Since the director relies on such an initial setting to start telling the story, it should be like "Escape from the Deadly Town" >Or like
The narrative method chosen by the director of the entire film is to focus the lens on Cecilia, locking the audience in her emotional space, but the invisible person is her source of stress, and all his character and behavioral motivations are avoided by the director. NS,
Through the mouth of Cecilia and Adrian’s brother, the director hinted Adrian’s control and violent behavior, but did not specifically explain Adrian’s means that Cecilia had no way to get rid of him through the help of relatives and friends and the law, and had to escape and hide. That is to say, Cecilia's seemingly desperate situation was actually stated through her own statement, and the fear in Cecilia's perspective created by this is completely unaware of facts. She can obtain the permission of the home monitor to escape, but there is no Adrian. Evidence of various behaviors, Adrian’s “domestic violence” in her mouth does not seem to leave any traces on her body.
So in the first half of the film, through the rendering of Cecilia's emotions, a situation that was originally confusing has been transformed into a very tense and fearful one. What does it pass through? Passed the performance of Elizabeth Moss (Cecilia) and the initial two default settings: one is that Adrian can be invisible, and the other is that Adrian can be found no matter where Cecilia hides; there is a specific Cecilia from life to spirit , Even if it is hiding, the whereabouts are controlled and mastered the details and substance? The answer is no
If Adrian’s character and specific behavior are the first key issue that the director avoids, the second key issue that the director avoids later in the film is the logic and rigor of the plot . In this part, I will explain through a few questions.
1. In order to create a suspense point and a reversal of the ending, there is a second invisibility cloak. But from Adrian’s perspective, he secretly researched the invisibility cloak so that Cecilia could not escape her control, but put the second invisible cloak. The piece was hung in the room where Cecilia might guess the code. Is that reasonable?
2. In the confined spaces that appear before and after the film, Cecilia can block the door when other people are present, use dust or liquid to spot invisible people, or explain their own situation without the possibility of invisible people being present. Based on the evidence, I think it’s impossible to say that Cecilia's IQ level can't even think of this. Since I started to know splashing water and laying sand at home, how come I didn't know when I got to the hospital?
3. If following the second point of view, Cecilia hid the second invisibility cloak not to obtain evidence, but to plan to use the invisibility cloak to murder Adrian, then this intention contacted her specifically to prove that she had mastered it. Is there a conflict in the evidence section?
4. Finally, from Adrian’s perspective, the second invisibility cloak was hidden and at the end he framed his brother to try to conceal the past. Whether it was Adrian who followed Cecilia home that day or his brother, Adrian was in When explaining to Cecilia, I must know that the second invisibility cloak is missing. Then when it is only possible that Cecilia hid the second invisibility cloak, another paradox in the plot is that Adrian wants to regain control of Cecilia. When you get back to him, you have to ask Cecilia where the invisibility cloak is hidden. Otherwise, let alone controlling Cecilia, even his own life is very dangerous. Once he asks, it means that he planned to let him. Brother followed Cecilia home or the invisible person at that time was him, so for Adrian at that time, the second invisibility cloak should be the most pressing issue. The director not only avoided this, but also used this as a bargaining chip for Cecilia's final fight. Is such a reversal reasonable and can withstand scrutiny?
Regarding all these issues, some viewers may put forward another logic-is it possible that the director deliberately designed an open ending, maybe Adrian is the real victim, the invisible man has always been his brother? I want to say that if you look at it from this angle, you will only find more plots that are unreasonable and need to explain more blank places.
So why is there such an ambiguity or a situation that cannot be explained from any logical point of view?
The reason is that the director has added a series of elements of crime, suspense, and reversal to the film, but there is no complete and self-consistent logic behind the layout of the plot. Not only does it avoid the perspective of Adrian, the main character, but also Adrian and His brother’s relationship was not clearly explained either. At the beginning, he left blank about how Adrian faked his death, and at the end, he left a series of incidents about how Adrian was tied up at home and how he blamed his brother on the police. White. Of course, the director can choose to lock the audience's eyes to the limited subjective perspective of the female subject, so that the audience can be immersed in Cecilia's emotional space and strengthen the sense of tension and fear, but the premise is that the content of the plot must be solid and reasonable, and must have A logically complete plot line
Just like the horror and thrillers "Escape from the Dead Town" and "The Mirage", although they have their own set of gimmicks that arouse the audience's interest, but in the process of developing the plot content around these settings, the two films have A rigorous and reasonable creative design was made for the conflict of the characters and the logic of the plot, and finally the whole plot concept was completed:
In the case of "Escape from Deadly Town", the film reveals in the middle of the setting that whites are grafted with thoughts through surgery. The second half actually focuses on how the black male protagonist escapes by means and kills the female protagonist’s family one by one. The plot Although the content and theme rely on the setting, they are both complete and reasonable at the same time
Taking "The Mirage" as an example, the director Auriol Paul made reasonable arrangements for the perspectives and possible stories of multiple identical characters in different time and space, and finally looked back based on the heroine's successful ending. Throughout the film, the suspenseful effect is achieved in one go
But in contrast, in this "Invisible Man", the director chose a clever or opportunistic narrative. With the help of this gimmick and the brilliant performance of Elizabeth Moss (Cecilia), the director did succeed in creating I have a strong sense of tension and firmly grasp the audience’s sight, but when the audience walks out of the theater or reviews the film in their minds, it’s not difficult to find out—
The large amount of plot content and logic in the film requires the audience to use information that does not exist in the film, combined with their own imagination to rationalize it. The most deadly result is that there is actually no logical and complete plot from all angles.
Therefore, the mystery and interpretation space at first glance behind the film is actually nothing more than the "obscure method" used by director Ray Warnall in this film.
Finally, let me talk about the topic of the extension of the film. I personally feel that Ray Warner not only used a speculative narrative in this film, but also borrowed such a concept of'invisibility' and the setting of the heroine. Refers to some incidents of mental control or violent treatment of women in the real environment, which triggers the subconscious self-hazard emotions of some female audiences . Regardless of whether the discussion is good or bad, this is actually achieved with the help of movie gimmicks. For some other B-level film directors, they still often rely on a gimmick to tell stories and use jump scares to scare the audience in the film, but I think these creative methods are already cooperating with "good friend" Wen Ziren.
Therefore, whether you look at it from the two angles mentioned above or compare it with the same type of quality films in recent years, it is difficult to say that this is a low-cost thriller that can be called a pass. It must be said that thanks to the excellent performance of Elizabeth Moss, many of the problems in the film have been concealed. If you now let you, who have passed that emotional point, go back and re-rate the film, you can give it How many points do you score?
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