This Americanized re-telling of the Swedish chiller-hit "Den Osynlige" certainly isn't a bad film, but it sadly is just a tad bit too sentimental and unmemorable. The film describes itself perfectly as "Ghost" meets "The O.C." The plot deals with supernatural themes and sincere human emotions, while the characters (and especially the soundtrack) seem to come straight out of a pretentious high-school TV series. The protagonists are all beautiful and spoilt teenagers, so it's pretty difficult to believe they're dealing with life-altering issues like murder, poetry and spiritual redemption. But nonetheless "The Invisible" remains an occasionally very engaging and fast-paced thriller, admirably translated to the screen by genre-expert David S. Goyer. Nick Powell is a popular high-school student who lives alone with his overly protective mother ever since his father passed away. When the local troubled girl Annie and her gang of youthful thugs wrongfully assume Nick told the cops about Annie's involvement in a jewelry theft, they beat him up badly and leave him for for dead in the woods. Slowly approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, Nick returns as an invisible spirit and painfully witnesses how the police investigation regarding his disappearance evolves extremely slow and frustratingly. His last and only chance is to somehow get into contact with Annie and convince her to correct her mistake with a good deed. David S. Goyer attempts fairly successfully, I may add to add as few fancy special effects and false scares as possible and puts the emphasis on the characters and the atmosphere. The characters of Nick and Annie clearly gain maturity throughout the story and by the end of the film, they evolved from annoying teenage brats to ... LESS annoying teenage brats. The handful of sub plots, especially the one focusing on Nick and his mother, are rather redundant and only make the wholesome even more irksome. The performances are pretty good, though. Justin Chatwin ("Taking Lives") and Margarita Levieva are terrific and actually manage to make their implausible characters convincing and at least a bit likable near the end. The obtrusive moral of the story as well as the overly melodramatic twists when reaching the film's finale are a bit difficult to cope with especially if you're primarily a fan of horror and thrillers but I bet other types of audiences will have tears when walking out of the theater. "The Invisible" has the same producers as "The Sixth Sense" and definitely also shares ideas and plot-aspects with that occult thriller hit. The little kid in the former saw dead people who didn't really realize they crossed the line to the other side, whereas Nick damn well realizes he's dead but there's nobody who sees him. Decent film, at least worth one viewing.
Review of The Invisible
