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John Cho (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) has been cast as Sulu, the Enterprise's helmsman, while Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) has signed on to play Scotty, the ship's Scottish chief engineer, in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek feature for Paramount.

Already on board are Eric Bana as the villain, Nero, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and Anton Yelchin as a young Chekov, the Russian-born navigator, as well as Zachary Quinto as a young Spock. Leonard Nimoy, who originated the role of Spock, is on board as well. Chris Pine is in talks to play the young Kirk.

The movie is expected to shoot from November-March.

Plot details are begin kept under wraps, but it is understood that the movie chronicles the early days of the Enterprise crew. The lead roles remaining to be cast are Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Enterprise, and Kirk's parents.

No doubt, I could go on from now until tomorrow telling you everything that's wrong with "The Invisible," but in the end it's one's gut feeling that counts, and I liked this 2007 release. It's a ghost story with no scares. A thriller with no thrills. And a romance with no romance. And yet... When it was over, I felt I had gotten to know the characters and sensed their pain. Sentimental? Yes, with an ending that moved me as much anything I've seen in a long time. Not a great film, to be sure, but one I was pleased with having watched.

While Director David S. Goyer has made films like "ZigZag" and "Blade: Trinity," he's mostly known as a screenwriter of such things as "Blade," "Dark City," and "Batman Begins," and it's the dark tone of these movies that shows up in "The Invisible." Writers Mick Davis and Christine Roum based their script on the novel "Den Osynlige" by Mats Wahl and on the Swedish film of the same name. Then Goyer added his own noirish touches, making a film so heavyhearted and melancholic, it will not appeal to everyone.

The movie's subject is death; although, to be fair, the movie does more than explore the tragedy of dying. It's far more introspective than that and delves into the subject of death in life, being "invisible" while still alive. In that sense, the film is more a symbolic parable than a straightforward ghost story, which audiences probably won't expect. So, give Goyer credit for doing what he wanted rather than what Hollywood formula dictates. Whether Goyer succeeded or not, you'll have to decide for yourself. For me, a lot of it worked.

The film centers on two high school seniors from very different backgrounds. The first character is a young man, Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin), a child of privilege, whose father has died; he is being raised by a cold, possessive, perfectionist mother (Marcia Gay Harden), who has the boy's life mapped out for him. The second character is a young woman, Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva), a child of misfortune, whose mother has died; she is being raised by a cold, indifferent father.

Nick is outwardly a model student, but inwardly he resents the world his mother has outlined for him, and in rebellion sells essays to other students to raise enough money to leave home as soon as he graduates. Annie is a tough delinquent who steals cars and jewelry and spends her nights with a hoodlum named Marcus (Alex O'Loughlin). Through a tragic mistake, their lives cross, and Annie murders Nick. Almost.

Annie and several of her hooligan friends attempt to rough up Nick for what they think is his involvement in turning Annie in to the police for a jewel robbery, but the beating goes awry and they wind up thinking they've killed Nick. They dump his body down a drainage hole in the forest and leave him for dead. But Nick isn't dead, and he finds his spirit suddenly lingering somewhere between life and death. If his body dies, his spirit will die, too. So he needs to find his body and, more important, find someone who will find his body and help him survive. Unfortunately, in his spiritual state, he cannot easily communicate with the living.

OK, you already see elements of "Ghost" in the story. But not really, because director Goyer is more concerned with the inner lives of the near-murderer and her victim. Since Nick knows who tried to kill him, he seeks out Annie to do what he can to get her to confess to the crime and lead the police to his body. In Nick's observing her, though, Nick learns that he and Annie have more in common than first meets the eye.

"The Invisible" is a quietly sad and lonely film about quietly sad and lonely people. At first, we see only the good in Nick and only the bad in Annie. As things go along, we begin to feel less concerned about Nick and more sympathetic toward Annie. Meanwhile, even Nick, who must rely on his murderer to save his life, begins to understand Annie and himself better.

The story moves slowly, the director preferring to establish a melancholy, somewhat enigmatic mood rather than hit us over the head with rousing action. For audiences used to nonstop movement and whizbang special effects, this film will seem like a long haul. After Nick's disappearance, a charismatic detective (Callum Keith Rennie) enters the picture, but after a few scenes, he disappears from the narrative. Likewise, we initially see much of Nick's best friend, Pete, (Chris Marquette), but then Pete finds less and less screen time as well. What it boils down to is a picture about Nick and Annie, and perhaps it would have been better for the filmmakers to have left out the peripheral characters altogether.

In a perverse way, "The Invisible" plays like a kind of fantasy version of "The Graduate," updated for the twenty-first century. It's about a sense of emptiness and alienation in a hostile, alien world, highlighted by the director's constant crosscutting from sterile city life to misty forests, both of them devoid of any serious interrelationships.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived," wrote Henry David Thoreau. I suspect the filmmakers were attempting to convey a similar idea. The movie is about redemption, about learning to live, and about doing that "one good thing" that can turn one's life around.

Personally, I'd rather watch a film that's about something, anything, out of the ordinary, something that attempts to make me think and feel, even it fails, than to watch a film that merely goes through the same motions as every other film that came before it. "The Invisible" makes that sort of attempt, and although it doesn't fully succeed, it kept me interested far more than most films I've watched this year.

Video:
Viewers may disagree over the film's content and worth, but they can surely have few qualms about its DVD image quality. Buena Vista's high-bit-rate, anamorphic reproduction makes this 2.35:1 ratio transfer sparkle. Colors are deep and natural, with truly intense black levels. It's really too bad that so many LCD TVs don't properly display inky blacks because the black levels in this picture need such displays for a viewer to appreciate them. Skin tones are a trifle glassy and dark but still show up as fairly realistic, and overall detailing is excellent. In the end, you get near-flawless standard-definition video quality, and that counts for a lot in one's enjoyment of any film.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio doesn't quite match the high standards set by the video, but it's close. There is a clear, clean midrange; a deep, well-defined bass; a good stereo spread across the front speakers; and a decent, if not exceptional, amount of activity in the surrounds, mainly in terms of musical ambience.

Extras:
How much you will like the extras depends upon how much you like audio commentaries, because this one's got two of them. The first is with director David S. Goyer and writer Christine Roum and the second is with writer Mick Davis. The first commentary is what we usually hear, but the second, with Davis, is a bit unusual. Not only did Davis write "The Invisible," he also wrote the Swedish version of the film, and he says this is the first time he's seen the American version, so it's new to him, too. He provides a unique experience, although he is a rather reserved fellow and goes silent for long stretches. I also wonder if it was the filmmakers' frustration with audiences not understanding their picture that prompted them to do two separate commentaries. Who knows. Next up is a series of eleven deleted scenes in anamorphic widescreen, totalling over thirteen minutes, with optional commentary by director Goyer and writer Roum; and that's followed by two music videos, "The Kill" with Thirty Seconds to Mars and "Taking Back Control" with Sparta.

The extras conclude with sixteen scene selections and a chapter insert; Sneak Peeks at seven other Buena Vista products; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Thoughts:
Although I have not seen the Swedish film upon which the filmmakers based "The Invisible" and, therefore, cannot make comparisons, I do know that David S. Goyer has made a decent film, one that simultaneously explores the human psyche while keeping its feet planted in the paranormal. Viewers are more likely to compare it to "The Sixth Sense," not coincidentally also from Hollywood Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment, but they won't find the same type of glossy entertainment here. "The Invisible" is not a film that every viewer will want to see, but give Goyer credit for doing it his way and at least partially succeeding.

October 2, 2007 - The Invisible is a ghost story about someone who is not quite a ghost... not yet anyway. Brooding, wealthy high school student and aspiring poet Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin) feels invisible to his high society mother (Marcia Gay Harden) and his classmates, save for his dorky pal Pete (Chris Marquette). Nick seals his fate after he confronts thuggish Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva) and her male cronies for shaking down Pete.

After Annie mistakenly believes that Nick ratted her out to the cops, she and her goons find him walking home half-drunk from a party and proceed to beat him senseless. Thinking they've killed him, they dump Nick's body into an underground tunnel in the woods and flee. When he awakens, Nick goes to class but is aghast when his classmates seem to be ignoring him and begin trashing his writing. Nick believes he's a ghost but, unlike Hayley Joel Osment, it turns out no one can really see dead people. But wait! Nick realizes he's not really dead... yet. He is trapped in limbo, unable to be noticed by the living, but not free of this earthly realm as the dead are.

- BV

Justin Chatwin in The Invisible; click for more images!

Nick must somehow get someone to find his unconscious body before he does die from his injuries. How can he do that when he can't be noticed? Or can he? The only person who seems to be able to "hear" him is none other than Annie, the troubled aspiring criminal who nearly murdered him. Nick initially loathes Annie but the more he observes and tracks her, he realizes she is not all bad and is not beyond redemption. Both of their fates depend on whether Annie will do the right thing and lead police to the body of the person that she tried to kill.

Despite an intriguing premise, The Invisible is undone by wooden acting and pedestrian directing. Relying heavily on moody rock music to convey the angst-ridden nature of its young protagonists, Goyer directs the film as if it were an extended music video from the 1990s rather than a supernatural thriller.

The two leads are hit-and-miss. Chatwin gives a one-note, sullen performance as Nick, sleepwalking through the whole film with the same hang-dog look on his face. When he needs to act, he simply screeches and waves his arms at the other characters, which just looks foolish since Nick knows after his first encounter that no one can hear, see or feel him.

Faring somewhat better is Levieva, who has that same sexy but dangerous and vulnerable allure that Angelina Jolie possessed back before she became an established star. Levieva manages to be legitimately intimidating as Annie, no mean feat for an actress who is five-foot-nothing. Once Annie sheds the Spenser: For Hire-style knit cap she's worn through most of the film, Levieva is able to find the more human and sympathetic aspects of her character.

The Invisible plays like a self-indulgent adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy. "If only I were dead then they'd all miss me and be sorry they weren't nicer to me, and then I could see how much they really loved me." Alas, Nick, you were a boring, glum and self-involved twit. When the most noteworthy thing about you is that you're no longer there, that ain't sayin' much.

Score: 4 out of 10

Video and Presentation
If an invisible DVD is one that you can see directly through, than the Invisible DVD is one that you hardly notice at all. The picture quality here is mid-line at best. Shallow contrast, muddy black levels - slight grain and occasional ghosting. The picture isn't bad, though nor is it good. It's simply...opaque. Not quite invisbile, not quite solid, this is a very average DVD.

Score: 6 out of 10

Languages and Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround-sound mix gives this DVD a slight advantage over its visuals and fairly unengaging narrative. The audio is, for the most part, clear throughout the dialogue sequences and sufficiently atmospheric in the building of suspense. This lacks the full flourish of an action film or more cleverly-crafted horror film, but there's enough here to mark the audio as the best element of the disc, however much of a compliment that may be.

Score: 7 out of 10

Extras and Packaging
Further proof that the theory that looking at a list of extras can provide a good indication of how a DVD may look or sound runs in the opposite direction, the mid-range picture and audio quality here is the first indication that the extras are likely to be lackluster. Which, of course, they are. Two commentaries and 13 logically-deleted scenes fail to give this disc the required punch to make it a recommended selection. That said, however, the commentaries by director Director David Goyer and writers Christine Roum and Mick Davis are not entirely unintersting, though one wonders why a single writer (in this case Mick Davis) gets his own commentary apart from the others. Either way, the commentaries qualify as better than bad and less than great. Make of that what you will.

As an additional note, the packaging of the DVD sports a front cover that makes this theatrically-release film look like little more than direct-to-DVD thriller.

Score: 6 out of 10

The Bottom Line
So invisible that if I'd seen it, I'd wish I hadn't.

IGN's Ratings for The Invisible
Rating     Description     
out of 10     click here for ratings guideGet Ratings Information
4     The Movie
See-through.
6     The Video
Opaque.
7     The Audio
Translucent.
6     The Extras
Visible, but not very pretty.
6     OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)