The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Invisibility is the ability or property of a person or object of not being able to be seen. There have been quite a body of works dealing with various invisible men (and women). The progenitor of these, although not the first work dealing with invisibility, was H.G. Wells’ novel The Invisible Man (1897). This was filmed as Universal’s classic The Invisible Man (1933), which led to a series of sequels, and has been variously remade over the years.
In the Wells novel and some of the films, the Invisible Man is driven mad as a side-effect of the formula he takes and is portrayed as a villain. Later films make the invisible man a hero or government agent. Other works about invisibility are played as comedies or children’s films, even works of erotica. There are also several superheroes with the power of invisibility.
Usually the invisibility process is created by taking a formula. In fantasy, there are a number of occasions where invisibility is created by magic rings and cloaks, or is a property of some magical creatures.
One form of invisibility is the cloaking device employed in the various Star Trek series, while it is also a property of some aliens.
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
The second of Abbott and Costello’s outings with Universal’s Famous Monsters. The usual numbskullery is boosted by some excellent invisibility effects
A unique and highly original take on the invisibility film where Olivia Thirlby becomes invisible because people no longer notice her until she meets one person who does
Another of The Asylum’s mockbusters, intended to come out the same time as M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth. This feels like a cheap planetary adventure that recycles Avatar and Planet of the Apes
One of Woody Allen’s less interesting films, a modernised version of Alice in Wonderland with Mia Farrow as a bored housewife who passes through various surreal experiences
Indie superhero comedy that reads a good deal funnier on paper than it ever produces laughs on screen. The production lacks the budget to produce more than a handful of cheap superheroic digital effects
Edgar G. Ulmer gained a small cult reputation as a director. Here he makes a very cheap invisible man film, one that spends more of its time as a 1940s crime melodrama
An anthology of comedy skits from several different directors including Joe Dante and John Landis. The result is fairly scattershot with moments of occasional humour falling between laughs that do not come off
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
The Avengers was the height of 1960s chic. Amid the 90s/00s fad for big screen remakes of tv shows, this was a miscalculated disaster that gets everything about the original wrong from the casting to the droll humour
Beginning as fan mill speculation, 20th Century Fox finally brought their Alien and Predator franchises together on the screen here. The result is an okay effort in the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, even if it never has the grueling intensity of the early entries in either series
Not to be confused with the Joel Schumacher atrocity, this was the second Batman film ever made, a 15-chapter serial. This is mostly worth watching as a novelty in its laughable attempts to approximate the superheroics of the comic-book in comparison to modern counterparts
A cheaply made Arabian Nights fantasy adventure that came out seeking to copy ride the coattails of the success of Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
This would be the last of the films made by stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen where he turns his creations towards conducting another Greek Mythology adventure. With an all-star cast playing the Greek gods.
Heavily disappointing remake of the Ray Harryhausen film where the replacement of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation with CGI fails to achieve any magic
The third of the theatrically released films spun off from the original Battlestar Galactica. This is compiled from episodes of the dire follow-up series Galactica 1980 where the show relocates to contemporary Earth
An alien invasion film set in Moscow. This is nothing more than a special effects vehicle about how the culturally self-absorbed twentysomething computer geeks and party girls save the world
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Terry Jones of Monty Python fame makes a comedy with Tim Robbins as a non-violent Viking on a quest to bring about Ragnarok. A film that seems to think it is funnier than it ends up being
Most classic monsters have undergone an adult movie interpretation at some point – here it is the turn of The Invisible Man
After several other film incarnations that went nowhere, The Fantastic Four make their first appearance in The MCU. The film creates a wonderful retro world of 1960s futurism based on their original comic-books for them to inhabit
Spinoff from the Harry Potter films – unlike those, written directly for the screen and feels more like it belongs there. The US locations open the story up, while the magic creatures and new ensemble cast prove a delight
The film version of the comic-book that was made by Roger Corman intended to never be released. This has a reputation as a bad movie and is extremely impoverished adaptation but is more authentic to the comic-book than other big-budget films
One of the big hits among the spate of Marvel Comics adaptations in the 2000s. This has a very mixed reputation but brings the comic-book team to life in a reasonable effort
Despite all the hate this received, I am maybe the only person out there that liked it. It is three-quarters of a good film that strips the Four of costumes and tells a character-driven story about people dealing with powers
The 2005 Fantastic Four was an amiable entry among the Marvel Comics adaptations of the 2000s. This sequel substitutes lowbrow comedy and renders the great character of the Silver Surfer as a CGI cartoon
A modest and quite good low-budget adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, which adheres more faithfully to the Wells novel than the recent high-profile film
Not to be confused with Tod Browning’s shock classic, this starts with a mind-bending quality that leaves you wondering WTF is going on, before logically and ingeniously unfolding as a psychic powers film
An extraordinary anime adapted from Project Itoh, a conceptually challenging work concerning a villain who can manipulate language to drive populations to genocide
Stephen Sommers make a film based on the popular action toy line. Barring one exhilarating sequence in the middle, this consists of lots of sound and CGI fury amounting to very little at all
A film based on the hugely popular children’s horror series. The film creates a story where the creatures from all the books are unleashed. This is fun to watch, yet what we ultimately have is easy, undemanding horror for family audiences
An Australian entry in the spate of superheroes with no powers films a la the likes of Kick-Ass, Defendor and Super. This plays out as a quirky but never particularly funny romantic comedy
A Russian attempt to create their own equivalent of an Avengers film. The results emerge surprisingly better than you expect and with some standout effects
Italian-made entry in the early 80s fantasy fad, a sometimes well made, sometimes sprawling Mediaeval saga about love between opposing sides of the conflict
Enormously entertaining and hilariously tongue-in-cheek Hong Kong action film featuring three popular actresses as superheroines who go into action in a series of wildly over-the-top moves
After two bloated and over-padded Hobbit films, Peter Jackson finally gets it together and produces what everyone was expecting him to deliver, even if it means dragging one battle scene out to last an entire film
Peter Jackson returns to J.R.R. Tolkien and epic-sized adventure in the first of his Hobbit films. The visual sweep is there but the film feels over-extruded and over-burdened by its own self-importance.
Generally overlooked animated adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien book made for tv by Rankin-Bass. This keeps to the text very faithfully – more so than Peter Jackson – and is only let down by some limited animation
The Hobbit became Peter Jackson’s equivalent of the Star Wars prequels and this is the weakest work he has produced under the J.R.R. Tolkien banner. Five picaresque chapters of the book are extruded into bloated set-pieces
Paul Verhoeven uses CGI effects to revamp the invisible man film with amazing results. On the other hand, Verhoeven’s penchant for sex and violence overkill quickly emerges with distasteful results
Utterly generic sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s invisible man film Hollow Man. This one has been so cheaply made that it even recycles its effects from the first film
A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula
I had little enthusiasm for this, I tend to like my classic monsters serious rather than defanged – these Hotel Transylvania films are so watered down, Dracula doesn’t even get to drink blood
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
Big hit for Pixar and director Brad Bird, a witty spoof of the superhero film that shows a superhero family trying to deal with everyday life. Enormously good-natured fun all around
Pixar’s venture into sequels in the last few years have resulted in not complete disappointments but works playing off past successes that have all been lesser than their originals. This is one sequel that came with much anticipation but it too must be counted as another disappointment
Universal’s Invisible Man films are not as well remembered but were often superior to their Frankenstein and Dracula films, particularly in the effects department. In the fourth entry here, made just after Pearl Harbor, The Invisible Man becomes a spy fighting Nazi and Japanese villains
A spinoff designed to feature Forbidden Planet‘s scene-stealer Robbie the Robot where he has been sent back in time to the present and is befriended by a young boy
A B budget 1950s alien invasion film that cuts cost by having the invasion represented by stock footage and the resurrected dead in a series of images that prefigure Night of the Living Dead
An inane invisibility film that plays out as no more than a crude 80s teen comedy with invisibility gags
Adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel that becomes a droll masterpiece in the hands of James Whale and with effects that still hold up today. Followed by a series of sequels
An adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel conducted as a mini-series from the BBC, this adapts the book with an enormous faithfulness
Blumhouse deliver an invisible man, although one that has nothing to do with H.G. Wells or the previous invisible man films. Indeed, this feels like an invisible man film that doesn’t even want to be about an invisible man at all.
An obscure, little-seen but fascinating Japanese copy of The Invisible Man films
The second of Universal’s Invisible Man films with Vincent Price inheriting the title role. Not quite as sublimely droll as James Whale’s original, this still has some amusing comic moment and good effects
Low-budget invisible man film that makes a beeline for the squalid – the invisible man is a cliched nerd scientist and the discovery of invisibility becomes an opportunity for him to wander into girl’s locker rooms, kill bullies and the like
The fourth and last of Universal’s Invisible Man sequels (aside from their outing with Abbott and Costello). Like the preceding ones, this is likeably good humoured and with good effects for the era
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes an invisibility comedy with impoverished effects. With Olen Ray’s usual parade of bimbos and cheerfully cynical one-liners kept under restraint and this made as a children’s film, there is not much beyond the lame humour
A 12 chapter serial about the hunt for a criminal who operates with the use of an invisibility ray
Painfully bad film about a jailed killer who uses astral projection powers to take revenge on those who convicted him
Third entry in Universal’s Invisible Man series. Though less recognised, The Invisible Man series had a level of creativity higher than Universal’s other monster series (Frankenstein, Mummy etc) but this one plays everything for broad comedy
This has an intriguingly original concept where milquetoast Tim Blake Nelson wakes up to find he has faded away and become invisible to other people – and then finds a secret world of other similar Invisibles
The much hated adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novels. It is undeniable fun watching the crossover between various fictional Victorian characters, while the production design is amazing
The third of the Left Behind films with Kirk Cameron facing the Biblical End of the World and the Antichrist. This travels well down into bad movie territory
An animated film based on both the Legion of Super-Heroes and Supergirl
Way back before Peter Jackson, Ralph Bakshi conducted this animated adaptation of J.R. Tolkien. While by no means uninteresting, the film was not a success and Bakshi failed to return to complete the announced second part of the story
Peter Jackson wowed the world with this first part of his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. Epic filmmaking and one that shows Jackson in full command of his craft
The weakest of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, the most variant from the source material and the one where Jackson allows visual effects bloat to take over
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga truly gains its feet here, expanding out onto an epic scale where he has fused special effects and story into a singular vision
Absolutely delightful stop-motion animated homage to the Universal Famous Monsters, which places tongue perfectly in cheek
Cheap and feeble-minded invisible man comedy that was made as part of the short-lived early 80s 3D fad. The first starring role from Steve Guttenberg
One of the numerous spy films of the 1960s, featuring Patrick O’Neal who goes into action with a magic invisibility ring
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
Tim Burton used to be the great hope of fantastic cinema but his efforts since 2000 have been greeted with general disappointment. This Young Adult adaptation plays out like a fantasy version of the X-Men
A Bollywood film about an invisible superhero, this is sparing on effects but should be seen for the lunatic entertainment value it offers, including several surreal song and dance numbers and much frenetic slapstick
Antonio Margheriti, better known for his Gothic horror and giallo films, makes an invisible man comedy
The Asylum conduct a monster bash – a crossover between the Famous Monsters – and actually do a modest and quite enjoyable job
This film adaptation of the videogame is a lot of fun. The plot is a rehash of Enter the Dragon but the film offers up wall-to-wall action and exotic creatures. A directorial debut for Paul W.S. Anderson who has been behind several other videogame-adapted films, most notably the Resident Evil series
An animated film revival of the Mortal Kombat videogame franchise. This does a quite reasonable reworking of the basics, while leaving you blown away with the ultra-violent excesses of the action
After 27 years, Dario Argento finally rounds out his Three Mothers trilogy begun way back with Suspiria but the underwhelming results give all evidence of his having lost his mojo
Fascinating, epically sized versions of the adventures of Baron Münchausen produced by the Nazis
The big screen remake of the 1960s sitcom about a wacky alien visitor. However, this all of the original’s amusements promptly gets buried under frenetic slapstick and cheap CGI gags
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
The second of Disney’s Dexter Reilly films with Kurt Russell as a teen genius who invents an invisibility formula
Hilarious Simon Pegg-written homage to science-fiction fandom and alien visitor cinema. imagine Starman recast with two science-fiction fans and tv’s sarcastically wisecracking ALF (voiced by Seth Rogen)
Disney live-action film about a boy and his dragon where the dragon is represented by animation
Pete’s Dragon was hardly a film that called out for a remake – even then, all but the basic premise has been thrown out here resulting in two films that hardly resemble one another – the original was light slapstick with a big cartoon dragon, this has become a sober wild child story where the dragon is now an endangered species
Based on a non-fiction, fringe science book that makes claims that the US Navy conducted experiments that turned a ship invisible during WWII, this spins the idea out into a modest time travel story
This Syfy Channel production can’t seem to decide if it is a sequel or a remake of the 1984 film. Michael Paré turn up in both versions but goes from being the hero to a menacing heavy. The original had its moments but this is generic and routine in all ways
This takes the previous year’s big hit of Aliens and fuses it with The Most Dangerous Game, swapping that story’s bored aristocratic hunter for an alien hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger and a team of soldiers in the jungles of South America
Shane Black, a writer-director with a reasonable cult following, makes the sixth Predator film (he also appeared as an actor in the original). Black shakes the series up, introduces a number of new ideas and makes an okay entry
Predator was one of the better Alien/Aliens copies of the 1980s. This sequel does little more than serve the same up all over again bar the substitution of a near-future L.A. for the jungle but manages to generate a reasonably intensive ride out of the action
The Predator series continues. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Prey, makes an animated offering that tells three stories of encounters between human and Predator in different eras of history
Despite being hamstrung with Adrien Brody in Action Hero mode, this is a hard-edged film that goes some way to rescue the Predator franchise from its novelty crossovers with Alien(s)
The seventh film in the Predator franchise. This received some of the best reviews of any film in the series and comes with the unique idea of pitting Native Americans up against a Predator
Dazzling French animated Cyberpunk film shot in the performance capture animated process and then rendered in striking two-tone black-and-white
Way back before Peter Jackson, there was another whole era of Tolkien adaptations, including this animated adaptation of the third book, which is a peculiar oddity if nothing else