The Invisible Boy

The Stoneman Institute of Mathematics under the military is developing a Supercomputer. The military is launching a secret satellite. Timmie Merinoe is an average ten year old. His father tries to improve his intelligence by bring him to the Supercomputer. Timmie improves to such an extent that he is able to reassemble Robbie the Robot which arrived from over 300 years in the future. Robbi helps turn him invisible. Meanwhile, the Supercomputer intends to take over the world using the military satellite.

There is a lot of nonchalant going on in this movie. None of the adults seem affected by a time-traveling robot especially the father. He treats the invisibility like an inconvenient prank. At times, it's laughable. This was probably strictly directed at kids. Reasoning is rudimentary and so is the acting. This is nowhere near the classic Forbidden Planet. There is a limited connection to the iconic movie which is more than simply reusing Robbie the Robot. It's cool to see this for a fan of Forbidden Planet but it's a weak movie on its own.

At every turn the extraordinary is dismissed with casual abandon. I think a formula was used to determine the dialog in this film, especially where interaction between the boy and his parents are concerned. What would a normal person be to expected to say in a given situation, use an opposite response. I focus on dialog because dialog is what I have the most trouble with in this film. The few times I have seen this I have wondered at what seems to be totally disconnected reactions to strikingly bizarre situations, and I have come to the conclusion that it was done on purpose. I have no insight into the minds of writers or directors, but considering the weak story, something needed to be done to make a potentially really boring plot engender at least a little interest. Even at the risk of making a silly movie. Another possibility is that everyone came to work loaded every day. I don't know how to rate it. I will need a time machine to go into the past and become invisible so that I can sit in on the planning of this one.

Some movie trivia sleuths consider this film to be sort of a "sequel" to Forbidden Planet" (also a Nick Nayfack production). Look for a scene early in the film where the disassembled "Robby" is found in a present-day scientist's store room, with notes indicating the scientist had developed a way of going into the future, where he obtained the robot. Also in this room is a picture that the young boy comments on, showing "Robby" emerging from the Forbidden Planet saucer ship at the "Chicago Spaceport" in the year 2242, inferring that Commander Adams, Altaira, and the rest of the crew made it back to Earth safely after the Krell furnaces caused the explosion of Altair IV at the end of that film.

Why is it that sci-fi movies from the 50s have such hokey names? This movie is not so much about the boy (who does, in fact, become invisible), but more an early Terminator-style computer-take-over-the-world plot.

This little picture has its moments of pulp poetry. There are not one, but two intelligent machines. One is a supercomputer that's been biding its time for decades, waiting for an opportunity that arrives one day in the form of a lonely little boy. He is invisible in the sense that the grown-ups pay no attention to him, condescend to him, or talk over his head--they just don't understand! When he becomes literally invisible later, it's just a way of literalizing what the movie has already been saying.

Anyway, the computer hypnotizes the boy and gives him instructions about putting together a robot that's lying disassembled in a workroom. It's all part of the evil plan to use boy and robot in a plot to take over the world via satellite.

The best moment comes when the insidious computer, invented by the boy's father, flashes all his lights and promises that they can explore the universe together. "Dad--" the boy starts to complain. "Just be quiet, son," says Dad, "and look at all the pretty lights." Man spellbound by his own invention, even unto his own destruction, and taking his future generations with him . . . .