The Invisible - PG-13

Supernatural teen thriller is preposterous, awful.

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Rating: PG-13 for violence, criminality, sensuality and language -- all involving teens. Studio: Buena Vista Pictures Directed By: David Goyer Cast: Marcia Gay Harden, Justin Chatwin, Margarita Levieva Running Time: 97 minutes Release Date: 04/27/2007 Genre: Thriller

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this thriller is being heavily marketed to teens, so many of them will want to see it. Expect a fair amount of swearing and mild sexuality and plenty of teen-on-teen violence and criminality, much of which is perpetuated by a highly dysfunctional girl who lies, cheats, steals, and kills. The main character has a distant relationship with his mother, whom he secretly resents for expecting him to be perfect.

Families can talk about parental expectations and gender issues. It's unusual for a teen thriller to have a female villain like this one -- instead of a catty high school "mean girl," she's aggressive, violent, and in many ways "masculine." Do parents expect different behavior from boys than they do from girls? Why? Does the media play a role in establishing those expectations? If so, how?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Sandie Angulo Chen

Most teens aren't serious film buffs, but even casual movie-going adolescents know the difference between a compelling, well-crafted high-school flick (Mean Girls, Brick) and a muddled mess like THE INVISIBLE.

Up and comer Justin Chatwin (Tom Cruise's son in War of the Worlds) plays Nick, a most-likely-to-succeed type who quietly subverts his golden-boy image by selling homework assignments and planning to escape to London for a writers' conference. But a run-in with Annie (Russian-born model Margarita Levieva) -- the school's kingpin of peddling stolen goods -- sets the stage for the supernatural-thriller bulk of the action.

While beating up Nick for being a rat, Annie and her henchmen go violently overboard and end up throwing his limp body into a manhole in the woods. Don't worry, that's no spoiler -- the movie's dramatic tension doesn't lie in finding out who did the deed (as with Patrick Swayze's death in Ghost), but rather in how fast Nick's body can be found. He isn't quite dead, but he's not really alive, either. His ghost has to get someone to help him before he succumbs.

Nick haunts his perfectionist mother (Marcia Gay Harden) and his best friend, but he mostly hangs around Annie. She's guilt-ridden but unwilling to confess, despite the fact that the cops know she's involved. Her family life is messed up, Nick discovers, so perhaps her bad choices -- like accidentally offing him -- aren't really her fault.

What's most ridiculous about The Invisible -- even by teen-drama standards -- is that eventually Nick and Annie develop a thing for each other. (Apparently being a ghost makes you extra forgiving, especially if your killer is gorgeous beneath her hoodie and skullcap.) In one scene, Nick has to repress his invisible-man urge to spy on her in the shower. And Annie, for some preposterous reason, decides to crash into Nick's room, where she caresses his face in old albums as if he'd been her boyfriend instead of, you know, the guy she bloodied.

By the time the climactic hospital scene occurs, it's hard to care whether Nick or Annie are ghosts, semi-conscious, or just plain dead or alive. But as long as teens buy tickets, the studios will just keep churning out these laughable stories.

Families with teens who like supernatural thrillers will enjoy Ghost, The Others, and The Sixth Sense.

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Content		CS	adults	kids
Content
Sexual Content Two teens get drunk at a party and make out (fully clothed) in bed. Annie and her boyfriend kiss. In another scene, she's getting dressed for school, and he's bare-chested in bed (obviously, they spent the night together). Nick and Annie cuddle while sleeping.
Violence Teenagers beat each other up, hold each other at knife- and gun-point, and nearly kill a character. Two characters shoot each other.
Language The usual PG-13 words: "s--t," "bitch," "ass," "a--hole," etc.
Message
	Social Behavior A wayward, violent teen redeems herself by helping the person she hurt. A golden boy who resents his mother learns to empathize with her loneliness and grief.
	Commercialism Brands/products featured include Fountains of Wayne, iPod, Bulgari, Aeron.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Adults drink champagne and wine; teens get drunk at a high-school party. A couple of characters smoke cigarettes. A character tries to commit suicide by taking pills.