Time to take a look at Robbie The Robot’s next big appearance. I wasn’t a big fan of the Forbidden Planet, but this film fixes just about all of my complaints. At most, you can say that this film is a little dull for most of the film, but slice of life stories can be good as long as the writing is strong. This film manages to get past the fact that the main character is a little kid since that’s usually worrisome for me.

Timmie is a pretty smart kid and he manages to pull off a feat that the world’s greatest scientists could not accomplish. He reawakens a robot that was found through time travel many years ago. (Well…he had some help from the evil A.I.) The scientists are so furious with this that they pretend that Timmie’s accomplishment is not a big deal. They essentially ignore him so Timmie asks his robot to make him invisible. The parents take this in stride and have fun talking to him about particles and super science equations. Timmie’s a little puzzled by all of this. Unfortunately for National Security, there is a central intelligence machine that wants to take down the planet. Can they really regroup in time?

The tone and atmosphere from this film are very different from the Forbidden Planet. This one plays out like an I Love Lucy episode or an Andy Griffith rerun. There is nothing supernatural of action packed about this installment and Timmie just wants to have a good time. You can definitely call this one part comedy as every character intentionally acts unrealistic as they take everything in stride without batting an eye. In this world, there is nothing weird about a kid turning invisible or a robot time travelling. You would think that this film took place in the old days, but even with alien parts, it’s hard to imagine that people could build such a sophisticated A.I. so easily.

The villainous A.I. is pretty good. It’s nowhere near the All Time greats like Skynet or Hal 9000, the ones who paved the way for evil A.I. programs, but it tries its best. I suppose that it is just a little less menacing and I do wish that it had a better physical body although most A.I. start out as mere generators anyway. As per usual, Robbie steals the show here even if he’s not quite as sarcastic and full of one liners as he was last time. After all, he’s not in his right mind for part of this film as he is quickly taken over by the A.I. Even futuristic robots are not safe from its presence.

As for the characters, Timmie’s a decent main character. He can be a little unreasonable and gullible though as he rides a kite in a very dangerous way and opts to be invisible for the lolz. It’s a great power, but I’d ask Robbie for an on and off switch to make it more practical. Robbie can do just about anything so I think it would probably be a pretty easy feat for the guy. The parents are all right I suppose although there is one scene that is a little dicey for them.

Keep in mind that Timmie is a little kid and up to now he’s basically been a model student. When he turns invisible, he decides to spy on his parents while they are trying to hurt the film’s score with unnecessary scenes. The parents realize this and try to catch him so we get a Scooby Doo chase scene. It’s a total Scooby Doo moment, which also means that they start to fear him a little as he retaliates by throwing pillows and other soft objects. You’ll have to suspend a lot of disbelief here. Would you ever be scared of your 7 year old son just because he turned invisible? It’s a little hard to fathom, but they took the win in the end and Timmie got spanked so alls well that ends well I guess.

As per usual, Robbie was the best character here and the A.I. was solid as well. The government looks decently good as they try to pressure the Dad into giving up the secret to his robots, but he doesn’t have any of that. They look discouraged, but not defeated after that scene. I liked the co-workers as well since none of them got along so we got a lot of passive-aggressive insults traded amongst themselves as Timmie used his invisibility powers to mess with the lot of them. It brings up the question, what would you do with invisibility? Would you use your powers to make the world a better place by going on top secret missions for the government or would you pull pranks on everyone so you could brag about your powers? Think carefully on this…

There’s no soundtrack of course and there’s really not much else to say about the film. It’s a pleasant experience. It tries to get a little serious by the end, but even then it stays very light toned with comedy undertones. If you were waiting for the hype moment in the poster above to occur..you’ll be waiting a while. This isn’t really that kind of movie, or at least it’s not played out quite so seriously. The slice of life feel works for this film though and it never really drags on.

Overall, The Invisible Boy is a good film. There are really no negatives to be found here. There’s not much action and while it is a good film, I wouldn’t call it a great one. It would need to have some more exciting moments or better characters to get a higher score. Compared to the average movie though, a 6 is quite high. I recommend this film if you want a nice little film to watch and remember the good ole days with. It’ll certainly be nostalgic for older viewers. If you want more action, then you should probably check out Terminator Genisys for a more serious take on this concept. Of course, you’ll miss out on Robbie The Robot that way so think about this move carefully.

Overall 6/10