Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Best movie ever!

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

a series who remembers many S.F. productions, crime and mysteries. but it seems be little more than resurrection of classic recipes. interesting for the smart use of old pieces. and for the good performance of Vincent Ventresca as a character between worlds. the humor, the precise construction of characters - ambiguity is basic ingredient - makes it familiar and , in same measure, different. a film who not gives really something new but seduce. a cold charming chef, a strange couple - in long tradition of deep different cops who makes great team - , the nuances to old story by Wells and, sure, the action scenes , the naivety and dialogs are inspired parts of a good work.

Intelligent, wry, and thrilling, "The Invisible Man" stood out in 2000 among Sci-Fi's usual lineup, balancing out "Farscape"'s fantastical art direction and sometimes melodramatic script with gritty, cynical plots and modern noir dialogue. The show sat between "Law and Order" and "Doctor Who" on the believability meter, but there was no denying the fact that "I-Man"'s characters went beyond caricature. Even characters that verged on predictability like the Keeper, the Official, and Eberts were given reprieves from the formulaic. Paul Ben-Victor and Vincent Ventresca had a chemistry that evolved and shifted elegantly, made even more remarkable by the revolving door team of writers and directors. The effects are never allowed to overwhelm the plot, and the science only sometimes verged on the totally unbelievable. The show's low points are still entertaining, and I've never seen such taut pilot episodes. Matt Greenberg and Sci-Fi should be commended, and fans have the right to demand a comprehensive DVD edition of the show. Every time I come across a marathon of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" on Sci-Fi, I roll my eyes and sigh, mourning the excitement and possibility of science fiction television that "Invisible Man" and its ilk represented.

After two failed attempts by the major networks to do a successful series about an invisible man, cable TV gave it a try in Y2K. Their version differed from the others and the movies; not necessarily for the better. First, the invisible man was a loser, a third rate, second story man, named Darien. Turns out he's not a very good thief either (too bad they didn't recruit Nyah Nordoff-Hall). After going down for his third strike, he faces life behind bars with no parole. His scientist brother offers him a way out. All Darien has to do it allowing his brother to put an experimental gland in his head that can make him invisible occasionally. Opting for the gland should have been a no-brainer. This moron however, actually had to think over which was preferable--not a good sign. I'm sure the idea was to give the show an "edge" by making the invisible man a cool and macho anti-hero. Given that his favorite expression is "Aw crap," I'd say that they missed the boat on that one.Anyway, this mysterious gland causes him to secrete "quicksilver," a so-called, light bending substance. The first time he transforms is admittedly eye opening. Darien fades out much quicker in subsequent episodes. I've always had problems with the notion of quicksilver. Since light travels over 186,000 miles per second you'd need the gravitational pull of a black hole to alter its course. If light was bent around Darien, then no light passed through his retinas so he should see nothing but total darkness. Quicksilver is a mercury-like liquid so why doesn't it rub off on bad guys when he punches them? In one episode, quicksilver was cold enough to freeze the mechanism of a time bomb. Yet, Darien can be seen by thermal imaging goggles which register heat.I could easily go on questioning how quicksilver allegedly works but why bother. What it really does is save money on special effects. It also enables Darien to keep his clothes on unlike Jack Griffin, so he can enjoy the advantages of being invisible without facing any of the, ah hem, "hardships." To pay homage to HG Wells however, Darien will go insane without regular injections of quicksilver counteragent supplied by a secret, no budget government agency. This supposedly forces Darien to work for these clowns who apparently handle foreign and domestic problems the FBI and CIA apparently care little about.A better name for this series would have been Vanishing Man. Darien spends an awful lot of time in a very opaque state, whining and bickering with that grouch of a partner he was paired with-Bobby Hobbes. As a result, I often found myself siding with the show's recurring villains-Arnaud and Stark. I found them to be much more interesting to watch than the guys chasing them. The show was canceled following its second season cause the ratings failed to justify production costs. Aw crap.

The Invisible Man is a demonstration of a great show built on a classic foundation. Wonderful characters, humor, plot, atmosphere, the works. It and the Sci-Fi Channel's other top series, Farscape, are great examples of how SF is at it's core about telling good stories, some old some new, with the twists of imagination only sci-fi can bring.