 High School senior Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin, who played Tom Cruise's asshole son in Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds), finds himself at a crossroads in life, never having completely gotten over the death of his father at age 13 and pushed by his overachieving mother Diane (Marcia Gay Harden) into a life he wants no part of. He's a bright kid, well-respected in his creative writing class, and he's harboring a dream to just skip out on his mother's grand plans for his life and fly to Europe to continue honing his writing skills. On the opposite end of the school's societal spectrum is Annie (the absolutely striking newcomer Margarita Levieva, who suggests Jessica Alba with a personality), a sullen, authority-defying girl perpetually clad in black, concealing her mane of beautiful hair under an unflattering wool cap. These two don't know it yet, but their paths are about to become fatefully intertwined in director Davis S. Goyer's intriguing, supernatural teen melodrama The Invisible.
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You see, Annie, rebelling against an uncaring stepmother she despises, and her father who she still can't forgive for remarrying, has taken to a life of petty crime and peddling drugs. One night, she smashes a jewelry store window with a crowbar and helps herself to several handfuls of necklaces and earrings. Her boyfriend, a recently paroled garage employee named Marcus (Alex O'Loughlin), soon grows disenchanted with the idea of her eventually landing them both in jail, and phones in an anonymous tip to the police leading them to the stolen jewels hidden in her locker. After making bail, Annie's understandably looking to get even with whoever squealed on her, and assumes it's Nick's best friend Pete (Chris Marquette), after she sees him noticing her putting the jewels in her locker. Pete doesn't know squat, but harassed by Annie and her hulking schoolyard accomplices, he fingers Nick, assuming that he's already on a plane to Europe and thus out of harm's way. But Nick has had a fateful, poorly-timed change of heart, and as he walks home alone on a deserted road that night, Annie and her strong arm bodyguards run him down and beat him to within an inch of his life.
 Horrified at what she's done, Annie and her accomplices quickly hide Nick's body in the woods, but the following morning, Nick strides out of the misty forest, apparently none the worse for wear. He returns to school for his creative writing class, and at first can't figure out why everyone's seemingly ignoring him. Despite his increasingly agitated attempts to attract the attention of his teacher and fellow students, Nick's cries go unheeded. But when Nick, in a fit of frustration, throws a book at a nearby shelf, knocking it off the wall, only to see it restored to it's previous state as if nothing had happened, he suddenly realizes that he's not... completely there. Somehow he's become stuck in limbo, unable to interact with the world around him. Understandably baffled and upset, he seeks out his mother, who's becoming worried that he didn't come home last night, his friend Pete, wracked with guilt over his culpability in his disappearance, and eventually his "killer", Annie, now on the lam for her part in the whole sordid mess. But, Nick gradually comes to realize that's he's only mostly dead, and that his battered body, lying in a drainage tunnel in the woods, can potentially be saved, if only he can somehow break through to Annie by convincing her to tell the police where to find him. But will Annie simply assume that the disembodied voice she occasional hears is simply her conscience bubbling up and giving her a guilt trip, or will she realize that Nick truly is communicating with her before it's too late?
The idea of a spirit continuing to stay behind after death and continuing to interact with the people it left behind is a staple of genre filmmaking, in everything from Always to Ghost to The Sixth Sense, but The Invisible (a remake of a Swedish film - unseen by this reviewer) makes canny use of this old concept with it's high school setting. What teenager
hasn't at somepoint felt invisible to his parents, peers, and teachers? Director Davis S. Goyer (screenwriter or co-screenwriter of numerous fine genre exercises like Dark City and Batman Begins), working from a compelling screenplay by  Christine Roum (adapted from the Swedish's film's screenplay by Mick Davis), mines this supernatural concept for some weightier-than-anticipated dissections of guilt and redemption, with the fine performances of Chatwin and Levieva both lending gravitas to the proceedings. The film has a certain subtle, European feel to it, not leaning on snazzy tech tricks to depict Nick's limbo stasis but instead on many elegant, in-camera sleights of hand that are pleasurably old-school in approach and execution. The movie gradually builds to a climax that earns a surprising amount of genuine emotional catharsis. What seemed from it's trailers to be a fairly routine exercise in supernatural suspense turns out to be, while still modest, a remarkably ambitious piece of storytelling, handsomely-crafted and ably performed by it's talented young cast. I haven't seen Goyer's previous films as a director (including the much-maligned Blade: Trinity), but The Invisible displays a great deal of promise, and here's hoping he'll continue to hone his skills behind the camera in the future.
 Presentation
The film's 2:35.1 ratio is presented in a crisp, anamorphic transfer that reproduces Gabriel Beristain's dark cinematography beautifully, with no visible print defects or grain. The film's 5.1 English soundtrack (with additional tracks in French and Spanish 2.0) is likewise well-balanced. Like many movies revolving around ghosts or spirits, the film wisely uses it's sound design sparingly, with half-heard whispers and other atmospheric auditory touches ripped apart by occasional loud noises like thunderclaps or screams (including the hardest-working scream in Hollywood, the Wilhelm). The soundtrack splits right down the middle, with countless montage scenes filled with popular soft rock song cues mixing surprisingly well with Marco Beltrami's fine orchestral score.
 Extras
The most noteworthy extras on the disc are a pair of audio commentaries, one very good, one atrocious. The good one features director David S. Goyer and screenwriter Chrsitine Roum, offering up a solid dissection of the differences between the Swedish film and their remake, how they achieved many of the subtle, in-camera visual tricks, and how they fought for a PG-13 rating despite the film's heavy themes. It's a brisk, chatty, enjoyable listen. However, skip the dreadful second track featuring Mick Davis, who wrote the original Swedish film. Right off the bat, he admits, in a thick, Scottish brogue, that this is the very first time he's sat down and watched the film, which should be danger sign #1. And, as I suspected, it's one of those infuriating "comment directly upon the on-screen action" tracks, made even worse by the yawning gaps (some as long as five minutes) between comments, often making me check to see if I had selected the wrong audio feed. I suffered through an hour of this before shutting it off. Don't make the same mistake I did.
We're also treated to a deleted scenes menu (13:45 total) that offers a number of trims and scene extensions that primarily flesh out a subplot with Chris Marquette's Pete character, as well as one major scene where Nick learns of his current limbo state in a completely different way (which was featured prominently in the films trailer). The movie still works fine without these scenes, but they're worth a look. These scenes offer optional commentary by David S. Goyer and Christine Roum.
Considering how many soft rock cues are in the film, the two music videos included were a given. Enjoy 30 Seconds To Mars' "The Kill" (5:07) and Sparta's "Taking Back Control" (3:53).
Lastly, there's the previews menu with looks at
Ratatouille (2:31), Lost Season 3 (0:41), Wild Hogs (2:33), Becoming Jane (2:26), Pirates Of The Caribbean, At World's End (2:35), National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (1:56) and a promo reel for Blu-Ray discs (0:52). The trailer for The Invisible itself is nowhere to be found.
Final Thoughts
This little film surprised me. It doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel, yet in it's own modest way it's queerly elegant and even touching. Certainly worth a look for the many (your humble author included) who skipped the film in theaters.
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