It’s time for another film in the Invisible franchise although I doubt many people have heard of this one. Invisible Agent is a very different take on the Invisible Man approach but one where the concept is sound. With a more likable main character you could easily picture this being the guy’s superhero origin and being a great template to follow. If there was ever a way to show how the Invisible Man could be a superhero, this would be the path to take.
The film starts off by introducing us to Frank who is the grandson of the guy who created the Invisible Man formula. He has sworn to never give it to anyone but he is attacked by a group of fiends. He barely fends them off and escapes to the police but decides not to give the formula to America either. After that Pearl Harbor occurs and he decides that it’s time to finish off the opposition. He agrees to use the formula but the catch is that he only trusts himself with it. So Frank is to go undercover and another agent named Maria will help him out. Unfortunately Frank has fallen madly in love with her and is determined to be with her even if it means costing the mission and losing the war.
This is where Frank quickly begins to fall off. See, the issue with this guy is that he should be putting his country first but almost feels like he is intentionally sabotaging the war effort after a while. Anything that he can do wrong, he does. He gets in the way constantly when Maria is trying to get information out of a guy called Karl. Frank messes with the guy by eating his food, shoving him, and just being a general nuisance. The scenes may be played for humor but Frank is doing things that would appear to be impossible for a normal person. Naturally this means that the villains who are aware of the invisible serum immediately know it’s him.
With this kind of power the whole point is that you should never have to tip your hand so what happened? Frank just made a mess of everything and as a result you definitely aren’t supporting his romance with Maria. It just doesn’t make sense and she should be so mad with him that she wouldn’t be interested in being with the guy either. It’s all so fast and none of it makes a whole lot of sense. You’re just not going to buy these developments.
Maria had been doing just fine on her own up until that point. She still does her best with damage control the whole time but it’s pretty tough going after a while. Meanwhile Karl’s definitely one of those villains who isn’t very smart and is basically sabotaging the villains himself. He’s like their version of Frank so things start to balance out there. I actually thought Conrad and Karl made for two very solid villains though. The fact that they were from different countries involved in World War II made for some interesting tension. They’re both villains and have an alliance at the moment but it’s not like they can trust each other at all either. Such is the life of a villain right? You’re getting yourself into a very bad spot right out of the gate.
The script is good as you’d expect with a lot of fun dialogue from all the characters. The movie goes by really quickly too and I still love the concept of using the invisibility serum in a war setting. If you’d use it right it would just be such a broken ability to have. No base would be safe, no secret left unnoticed. You’d always have to watch out for someone being around. Sure with modern technology it would be easier in a lot of ways but even then there is a ton of damage that could be done. The first country to perfect invisible technology would have such a large leg up over the competition.
Now, if Frank was a better character then I would say that I don’t mind his decision to use the serum himself. Due to how dangerous it is you can absolutely see why he wouldn’t want anyone else to know how to use it and even if they win the war, once the formula leaves your hands you can bet that the government is going to hang onto the instructions just in case. That’s just how these things work. It would be needed for the future wars and then the enemies would eventually get it and then you’ve got an ever escalating war as always.
I did enjoy the scenes at the round table with the government discussing how to handle things. It’s the one thing that was missing from the film since we didn’t get a lot of planning and things like that. Really once Frank arrives it’s more about just getting intel and fighting the villains but he’s left to his own devices for the most part. The film’s short so they can’t let too many things be happening at once but I’d gladly extend the film another 20 minutes if it meant we could have more Mission Impossible type scenes of infiltration and planning. I mean with being invisible you would expect that to be a given right?
Overall, Invisible Agent is a pretty good movie. The romance as well as Frank himself are definitely the weak points here but the film has strong enough fundamentals to get past them. It’s got a solid amount of action and suspense throughout after all. The movie started out strong with the opening fight as the villains nearly get the better of Frank twice but ultimately he’s able to fend them off. It was a good fight and the film certainly showed that it could handle a solid fight scene when it wanted to that’s for sure. The action here was on point throughout the film and I would recommend checking it out. They should do more Invisible Man films with this kind of a plot. Maybe do one where he’s a villain on the opposing side.
Overall 7/10