Completely under-rated in my books.
It really engaged the dry side of Chase's humour. Carpenter made it funny and quite dark suprisingly. There were many bits I cracked up in like the Taxi scene. I thought the movie was fun and quite moving. And deserves a better rating.
Wonder if the script was originally also that funny, or was some of the comedy added after Chase came on board to better suit his screen persona. There`re a lot of one-liners that feel like they would be right at home in Fletch or the Vacation movies. Or did he ad-lib some of it?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
To 'franzkabuki':
The screenplay is written by three people, one of them legendary screenwriter and two times Academy Award winner William Goldman.
In one of Goldman's autobiographical books about screenwriting he tells the background story to "Memoirs...":
Goldman liked the novel, but the studio wanted a Chevy Chase comedy,
while Chase himself wanted to become a serious dramatic actor.
According to Goldman the process to satisfy everyone became a nightmare,
but since he didn't take his name of the film, there's still a lot of his work in the movie.
The dialogue is very good and could be largely Goldman's, I think.
To all the others:
I like movies about invisible dudes, I don't know why...
This one is seriously underrated, just like Verhoeven's "Hollow Man"(2000).
One of Carpenter's better movies!
Sure it's made for families & couples and not a horror film,
but I remember it was unpredictable fun in the cinema.
It's good comedy with great f/x.
Good cinematography by 6-times Oscar-nominee W. Fraker
and funny dialogue by 2-times Oscar-winner W.Goldman.
You can't ask for more class in this kind of genre...
Since John Carpenter didn't have 'final cut' or total control on this movie,
it's not perfect, but great entertainment nonetheless.
A Director's Cut including deleted material and comentaries would be nice...
Rating is now at 5.9 , so the IMDB score did rise tremendously in the last years!
I'll gave it an 8.