''The Invisible Boy: Second Generation'' ( it, Il ragazzo invisibile: Seconda generazione) is a 2018 Italian
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
-
superhero film
A superhero film (or superhero movie) is a film that focuses on the actions of superheroes. Superheroes are individuals who possess superhuman abilities and are dedicated to protecting the public. These films typically feature Action film, ac ...
directed by
Gabriele Salvatores
Gabriele Salvatores (born 30 July 1950) is an Italian Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter.
Biography
Born in Naples, Salvatores debuted as a theatre director in 1972, founding in Milan the Teatro dell'Elfo, for which he directe ...
. It is the sequel to the 2014 film ''
The Invisible Boy
''The Invisible Boy'' (aka ''S.O.S Spaceship'') is a 1957 black and white American science fiction film from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, directed by Herman Hoffman, and starring Richard Eyer and Philip Abbott. It is the se ...
''.
Plot
Three years after the events of the first film, Michele Silenzi's adoptive mother Giovanna has died in a car accident and Michele's love interest Stella – whose memories were mentally erased by Michele's father Andre – remembers nothing of what happened in the submarine and got engaged to Brando, who made her believe he was her savior.
In Michele's class comes a new girl, Natasha, who has a special
elemental
An elemental is a mythic being that is described in occult and alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus and his subsequent fo ...
ability of
pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis is the purported psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of pyrokinesis. Many alleged c ...
. During a party given at the home of Brando, Natasha lights up a fire to create a stir so as to be able to stun Michele, who wakes up in the bedroom of an abandoned noble house, and finds Natasha and a woman named Yelena, who reveals to him that the girl is his sister and that she is their mother. In the meantime, some Specials scattered around the world are kidnapped.
Yelena explains to Michele that she needs blood transfusions from him and Natasha in order to be able to reinforce since she is belonging to the typology of first-generation specials. Transfusions are performed by the Doctor KA, a doctor belonging to the "normal" who has worked with Yelena for some time; she tells her son that Andrey has been mysteriously kidnapped and is convinced that the abductor is the cruel Igor Zavarov, a Russian oligarch known to her as a bitter enemy and exploiter of the Specials. Yelena's plan is to help kidnap Zavarov with the help of Michele and Natasha in order to stop his campaign against the Specials and save Andrey. The kidnapping must be carried out while Zavarov is in
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...
for the inauguration of his new pipeline and Yelena entrusts Michele with the task of entering the offices of the police station and stealing the security plans for the day of the inauguration of the gas pipeline, discovering the exact movements of Zavarov. Through his invisibility, Michele succeeds very well in the task by making his mother proud of him.
The family begin to know each other and love each other: the two siblings are confiding some of the key episodes of their lives lived in those years. Natasha says she was taken to Morocco and entrusted to a good woman, who later died. Her brother became the legal guardian of Natasha and began to mistreat her until she tried to take advantage of her. This until the girl discovered her power, just before being saved by her mother; one day Natasha is also intrigued by a talisman spotted in a jewellery store, Michele uses his power to steal it for her and, together, deliver the jewel to their mother who, joyful to be re-forming her family, wear it saying that she would have never taken it off.
That night Yelena remembers the events following the flight with Andrey and the children. While the man had managed to save himself, Yelena had been captured again and locked up in an institute where, with the arrival of Zavarov, the experiments on Specials to try to understand the origin of their power became real torture. Only Doctor KA showed a certain respect for them but Zavarov did not care about their lives and when, during an experiment, Katia the elastic girl dies, Yelena tells Artiglio that it was time to unleash the rebellion. The Specials took the power of the fortress but they could not stop Zavarov who therefore saved himself on a helicopter. While most of the Specials decided to return to life by hiding their skills, Yelena wanted to find her children, with the help of Artiglio and Doctor KA.
Once the time for the inauguration of the gas pipeline has arrived, Yelena and Natasha tell Michele to say goodbye to anyone belonging to his past life and Michele goes to the gym where Stella and his friend Candela rehearse their last issue of artistic gymnastics, so as to see for the last time the girl he loved. As he is about to leave, the boy notices a man and a woman, Cinetica and Morpheus, stealing a wallet through her paranormal modalities and, recognizing them as Specials, the boy follows them. The two enter the villa where Michele lives with his mother and sister and follows them down to the basement, where a meeting is held in which there are Yelena, Natasha, Doctor KA and the Specials who had been kidnapped in Europe. Yelena, who is the leader of the group, exposes an extreme plan that shows how the tortures by Zavarov had made her so rebellious that she became even cruel: at the inauguration of the gas pipeline, the group will go to the warehouse where it is located the generator plant and pour inside it an explosive substance which will be driven by the intensity of the fire of Natasha and provoke a great explosion that will exterminate in addition to Zavarov even a large part of the population of Trieste. So it was Yelena who kidnapped the Specials so that they could use them as allies in that operation that will serve to destroy a good part of the normals that Zavarov belongs to and give the sign of the supremacy of the Specials over them. Michele now knows the truth and would like to warn the police but Natasha, bequeathed by Andrey, can hear her brother's thoughts and spots him out.
Michele is locked in the cell in the basement, reproaches his mother of not being able to act in the first person being too weak to do it, and Yelena gives him a bitter news: Doctor KA has managed to combine the DNA of Second Generation Specials of Natasha and Michele in a machine called UTERO, thanks to which Yelena and the Special allies have regained their full strength. That's why the mother so badly needed her children. Natasha, who had not had an acceptable life like that of Michele, is determined to follow her mother to the end while the boy discovers that next to his cell is the one in which his father is locked up, kidnapped by his mother and segregated there for all the time as for not having approved the extreme rebellion of Yelena. Andrey, through the mental connection he has with his son, shows him the truth about what happened to Giovanna: Yelena killed her. After sneaking into Giovanna's car and having anaesthetized her, Yelena pushed the car and the policewoman off a cliff. Michele, by the anger and frustration of what was revealed to him, takes control of his mental power of manipulation of the molecules and destroys the walls of the cells.
Michele and Andrey reach the pipeline pumping station where Yelena and the team are about to start the plan. Natasha, supported by her mother, is preparing to strike the generator with fire, but Michele communicates telepathically with her and shows her the images of Giovanna's murder so as to make her aware of the unkempt, unreachable meadows of her mother. In tears, Natasha turns her disagreement over her mother, disappointed by her constant lies as a function of her goals. Yelena turns invisible and brings a burning beam to the generator; Andrey finds and hears the thoughts of the woman, identifies her and starts to chase her. In the end, the two of them fall embraced against a blunt iron that protrudes from the floor, impaling both of them.
Michele has saved his friends and the city but also Zavarov, the three Special helpers leave suggesting that they will continue their hunting all alone. Michele confronts Stella, who has now figured out who saved her that night and asks her to keep the secret. In front of their parents' bodies, the twins hug each other. In the end, the brother and sister embrace on the back of a bus and Michele shows a normal child his power, and then ask him not to reveal it to anyone: he realizes, therefore, another relationship of trust between special and normal that her mother had not believed possible.
Cast
*
Ludovico Girardello
Ludovico Girardello (born 5 December 2000 in Vittorio Veneto) is an Italian actor best known for his role of Michele Silenzi in '' The Invisible Boy'' movie series A film series or movie series (also referred to as a film franchise or movie franch ...
as Michele Silenzi
*
Galatea Bellugi as Natasha
*
Kseniya Rappoport
Kseniya Aleksandrovna Rappoport (russian: link=no, Ксе́ния Алекса́ндровна Раппопо́рт; born 25 March 1974) is a Russian actress. She graduated in 2000 from Saint Petersburg Academy of Theatrical Arts and was immedi ...
as Yelena
*
Dario Cantarelli
Dario Cantarelli (born 16 September 1945) is an Italian actor.
Biography
He began his acting career on stage in 1973 with Carlo Cecchi's Granteatro company, playing roles in plays by William Shakespeare (''Antony and Cleopatra''), Eduardo De Fili ...
as Morfeo
*
Katia Mironova as Cinetica
*
Ivan Franěk
Ivan Franěk (born 17 June 1964), sometimes credited as Ivan Franeck, is a Czech film and television actor.
Early life and education
He was born in Plzeň, Czechoslovakia. Franěk moved to France in 1989.
Career
His first major role was appea ...
as Andrey
*
Noa Zatta as Stella
*
Assil Kandil as Candela
*
Kristof Konrad
Kristof Konrad (born Krzysztof Wojslaw, April 26, 1962) is a Polish-American film, television, theatre, and voice actor, acting coach, voice coach, movement specialist and the Alexander Technique teacher. For over twenty years, he has successfull ...
as Igor Zavarov
*
Daniel Vivian
Daniel Vivian (born 1963) is a British actor of Serbian origin. He works internationally.
Biography
Early life and career
Daniel Vivian began acting with Bosnian film director Pjer Zalica in experimental short films. He later appeared in a ...
as Lobanowski
*
Emilio De Marchi as Doctor K.
*
Valeria Golino
Valeria Golino (born 22 October 1965) is an Italian actress and film director. She is best known to English-language audiences for her roles in ''Rain Man'', ''Big Top Pee-wee'' and the two ''Hot Shots!'' films, particularly the olive-in-the-bell ...
as Giovanna Silenzi
Awards
David di Donatello Awards
The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (The Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award cat ...
(2019)
* David di Donatello for Best Visual Effects to
Victor Perez
Nastro d'Argento Awards (2018)
* Nastro "ArgentoVivo" cinema&ragazzi Award to
Gabriele Salvatores
Gabriele Salvatores (born 30 July 1950) is an Italian Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter.
Biography
Born in Naples, Salvatores debuted as a theatre director in 1972, founding in Milan the Teatro dell'Elfo, for which he directe ...
* Nomination for
Nastro d'Argento for Best Producer The ''Nastro d'Argento'' (Silver Ribbon) is a film award assigned each year, since 1946, by ''Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani'' ("Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists"), the association of Italian film critics. ...
to Indigo Film, Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima and Carlotta Calori
* Nomination for
Nastro d'Argento for Best Production Design to Rita Rabassini
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Invisible Boy, The: Second Generation
2018 fantasy films
2010s superhero films
2018 films
Films directed by Gabriele Salvatores
Italian coming-of-age films
Italian fantasy films
Italian superhero films
Teen superhero films
Films about invisibility
Films set in Trieste