Review: Not Much To See In Netflix's THE INVISIBLE CITY
TV shows will normally have ups and downs, usually with a rough pilot and strong third act through an initial season. However, The Invisible City felt like a roller coaster going all over the place in quality of story, production value, and mystery.
It’s hard to sum up the story because many things are revealed and are learned by a variety of characters, but it feels like very few things actually happen other than some deaths and odd choices. But, to sum it up, a police officer is investigating a variety of mysterious happenings in a nearby village after a terrible accident. This then reveals things about various aspects of his personal life and the world as he knows it. To not spoil things, I'll be blunt and skip over specifics, everything feels shallow and unnecessary. The actual mysteries don’t feel all that important because they are vague or seem unimpactful to what is happening to our protagonist. In some episodes, there’s a lot of built-up tension which could lead up to interesting story beats, developments, and real consequences to actions, but they are usually cut by cliffhangers or an exposition dump in the next scene. By the time anything actually interesting happens the viewer feels disconnected or bored. It is as if a number of things try to happen, but the emotional and dramatic weight dies or was never in the scenes in the first place.
The production quality is also all over the place too. The setting and acting, in general, are mostly well done. But the visuals, editing, and pacing feel terribly rushed at times. Sometimes characters are talking for far too long or events happen behind a wall or in a dark alley because it doesn’t fit in the budget. I get that there are budget limits, but a number of visuals feel poorly thought out and are painfully obviously fake. Also, I watched a lot of it in its original Portuguese and it didn’t change its quality very much in story beats or quality of acting and personality interaction.
The Invisible City is a fantastical story from the perspective of someone logical. The audience never gets to enjoy or embrace the fantasy. But the logic of a mystery or crime show is never fully applied, making everything a mixture of odd elements that don’t go together. It’s a solid attempt at a fantasy/drama/mystery series but just falls flat in too many ways to be memorable or worth watching.
