Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Memoirs of an Invisible Man Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson August 1, 2018

Growing up, Chevy Chase was my favorite Hollywood funny man so I tried to see and collect everything I could from the original SNL alum—comedic skits, feature films, TV specials, and his short-lived The Chevy Chase Show. Around February 1991, my dad and I went to Nothing But Trouble at our local cinema. I found it bizarre, dark, and amusing. (I didn't think it was as bad as critics lamented.) When I eventually saw Memoirs of an Invisible Man, I had different expectations for this sci-fi/comedy hybrid than I did compared to how I'd approach Chevy's slapstick comedies. At first, I was unsure of what to make of him playing San Francisco securities broker Nick Halloway. Chevy deviated from his usual shtick in one of the most serious roles of his career. He maintains much of his tongue-in-cheek humor while demonstrating a lot of improvisation as the title character (thanks also in large part to ILM special effects supervisor Bruce Nicholson). Chevy's on-screen romance with Daryl Hannah (as Alice Monroe) is also among his most serious and sincere. Their chemistry works surprisingly well.

Though I was familiar with John Carpenter's work prior to Memoirs' release, I wasn't aware of his status as an auteur upon seeing it. I particularly like Carpenter's narrative strategy of shifting the story's point-of-view. Sometimes the camera is from Nick's disembodied perspective while other times it's seen from an objective vantage point. In James Whale's The Invisible Man (a very creepy film for 1933), Claude Raines's Dr. Jack Griffin is primarily seen from just an objective view. Griffin is rendered practically invisible for the picture's full duration. Watching Memoirs again, I mulled about the creative and editorial decisions that Carpenter and his crew made as well as those that they didn't. For example, I don't think the film would have been as absorbing had Chevy only been fully visible for the first act into the flashback. (It obviously would have hurt the film's box office prospects too.) It's fun for the audience to see Chevy in full view, for example, when Alice and the work colleagues from Nick's securities firm meet at a summer cottage and openly discuss their opinions of Nick. Had Chevy been completely invisible, we would have been deprived of his facial expressions in reaction to his co-workers. All in all, Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a fun and inventive piece of nineties cinema this is often overlooked in Carpenter's filmography.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Carpenter fans and myself have waited a long time for Memoirs to reach Blu-ray in the States but Shout! Factory has finally brought it to us on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The film had been OOP the world over until Warner had released it MOD in 2014 as part of the studio's Archive Collection. It has been available on Blu-ray in Germany and Japan. To aid my evaluation of the transfer to the picture's provenance, I'll refer to Ric Gentry's articles on Memoirs that appeared in the American Cinematographer. Cinematographer William A. Fraker shot Memoirs in 2.35:1 using Eastman Kodak 5248 for daylight exteriors and 5296 for interiors as well as for nighttime shots. For the latter, Fraker says it gave image a "very, very rich look..with the 96 [set] at 400 we can get deep, beautiful blacks and a big full exposure in the black area....We then have a range for reproducing the whole gray scale, so the film can reach into the black area, be exposed, and reproduce itself for black. It was especially important in this film because, in a sense, you associate invisibility with black." Though Shout's transfer shows some de-noising effects, the pitch blacks have been maintained as you'll notice in the screenshots. Look at how dark Stephen Tobolowsky and Sam Neill are in #6. For the partially invisible Magniscopics building seen in #9, Fraker wanted it to stand out as "charcoal gray" against the black background.

Though there's been some grain removal, I'm pretty pleased with this transfer. There are no stability problems and the print is devoid from defects. During one of Nick's dreams, Fraker has given the image a "dreamy" look and feel with a hazy, nostalgic appearance from the soft focus (see #s 9-10). Shout! has transferred Memoirs at an average video bitrate of 35000 kbps while the whole disc clocks in at a total bitrate of 39.02 Mbps.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (2030 kbps, 24-bit). The track is remarkably clean and often robust in the dispersal of music and f/x. Dialogue is consistently intelligible. Shirley Walker's score shows excellent range, especially during the main titles. The master is in outstanding shape with no major flaws.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "How to Become Invisible: The Dawn of Digital FX" (4:11, upconverted to 1080)

• Vintage Interviews with Director John Carpenter, Actors Chevy Chase and Daryl Hannah (5:23, upconverted to 1080)

• Behind-the-Scenes Footage (5:07, upconverted to 1080)

• Outtakes (3:09, upconverted to 1080)

• Theatrical Trailer (2:01, upconverted to 1080)

• TV Spots (4:11, upconverted to 1080i)

Memoirs of an Invisible Man Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Memoirs of an Invisible Man was a nice change-of-pace for both Chevy Chase and John Carpenter. It deserves a wider audience and this fine Blu-ray from Shout! should afford fans of the main star and director to see this underrated gem. The transfer and loosless sound are both very good. I wished Shout! had produced some new bonus materials as all the extras are recycled from previous DVDs and BDs. This is likely to be the best overall edition at least for a while. I'd recommend waiting till the price dips below $20.