#622 – Invisible Mom II (1998)

Invisible Mom II (1998)

Film review #622

Director: Fred Olen Ray

SYNOPSIS: When a millionaire passes away, his long-lost grandson Eddie becomes the heir of his fortune. Unbeknownst to him, he is stuck in an orphanage while the hunt for him goes on. He is fostered by the Griffin family, learning that Mrs Griffin has the ability to turn invisible when she is angry, thanks to one of her husband’s inventions. However, Eddie’s cousins take him away to adopt him so that they can claim the inheritance, and the Griffin’s must conduct a rescue before it’s too late…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Invisible Mom II is a 1999 sci-fi children’s film, and the follow up to the 1996 film Invisible Mom. two years after the events of the first film, we open to…something completely different, as a man lies dying in bed. His nearest family members eagerly await his death so they can claim his vast fortune, but upon learning that their young cousin Eddie is alive somewhere in Foster care and he will get the entire fortune, they hatch a plan to find and adopt him…and eventually kill him like they have the rest of the family to get their hands on the fortune. The plot is a fairly standard one for a kid’s film that’s simple enough to follow, and has distinct, yet goofy villains. It should also be noted that it actually has a plot, unlike the first film, in which barely anything happens other than Mr Griffin’s boss tries to take credit for the discovery.

Speaking of which, it turns out that the antidote Mrs Griffin took to turn visible again was only partially successful, and she still turns invisible when she gets angry…yes, I’m going to go for the obvious joke here: she’s basically The Invisible Hulk. The ending of the first film is hand-waved away, with the formula apparently being taken by the U.S. military and that’s the end of it. You might expect a familiar scenario of Eddie being angry or rebellious about his new foster home but…he seems to quite like it immediately: everyone is quite nice to each other all around, and there is no conflict anywhere: even when Eddie decides to try and clean a stain on Josh’s jacket with a handheld buzzsaw (????), Josh just shrugs and says he didn’t like it anyway. Again, I know this is a children’s film, but I’m sure it’s okay to have a bit of conflict and tension somewhere? The Griffin’s themselves are mostly unchanged from the first film: all the same actors return, although Josh is notably older now as he is a teenager, but we don’t get any exciting new character arcs or development for them.

Eddie’s cousins turn up to adopt him as his only living relatives and to take him to their home, with the intent of killing him off and collecting the inheritance. Josh stows away in their car, and when his parents learn of it, they must conduct a rescue, and Mom has to turn invisible to rescue them. It’s noteworthy that Mrs Griffin barely turns invisible: just three times, the first only happening half-way through the film. Eddie’s cousins as the villains are probably the stand-out characters: they really chew the scenery every time they’re on screen. Bernard is played by Micky Dolenz of The Monkees fame, and really has a voice that you can’t help but listen to. The last part of the film is essentially just Eddie and Josh running about the villains mansion (why do they need the inheritance when they clearly live in a mansion?) while they try to off the children. It’s not terribly exciting, and as mentioned, there’s not much of any “invisible Mom” shenanigans that add anything to the formulaic plot. Despite all these criticisms, it is well acted, with Dee Wallace as invisible Mom, Micky Dolenz as mentioned, and Justin Berfield as Eddie, who would take the role of Reese in Malcolm in the Middle a year or so later. the film tries to have a bit of fun, but loses its way the moment it tries to veer outside the very formulaic plot. Nevertheless, it is an improvement over its predecessor, if only for the reason there is a bit of a story. Still not a great film, and certainly not for anyone other than young kids who can overlook the gaping plot-holes.