Director Paul Verhoeven doesn't shy away from the gory stuff. In movies like Starship Troopers, Robocop and Total Recall, the violence was joyously evident everywhere. Where Hollow Man differs is in its simply pedestrian script. With the special effects available today, the idea of a homicidal, invisible man could have been a lot more than a retread of Deep Blue Sea or even gasp The Haunting.
Yet another Hollywood project that promises considerably more than it delivers. While there's enough onscreen to easily hold your attention, you'll constantly be distracted by how much better this movie could be. As it stands, Hollow Man is worth seeing, but it's a crime when a movie falls so short.
The scientific mumbo-jumbo all looks adequately impressive, so it's easy to buy the whole idea of turning Kevin Bacon transparent. There are lots of cool-looking computer terminals and steel everywhere, and a bunch of invisible dogs and apes. After his funding is threatened, scientific 'genius' Bacon straps himself down and goes invisible, knowing full well that the experiment may not be completely successful. (His rash motivations are overtly reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum in The Fly: He's jealous of some guy and wants to impress some girl.)
So far, so good: Arrogant scientist becomes invisible and starts playing tricks on his staff. He sneaks up behind them, and he even cops a boob-grab on the resident veterenarian! Hey, this invisible stuff is great! He even sneaks out a couple times and looks at some bare boobies! I love this movie.
The supporting cast is adequately superfluous, including Elisabeth Shue, who again tries to emote and fails miserably. Josh Brolin does a brief he-man thing and also fails. Recognizable faces like William Devane, Kim Dickens and that odd-looking guy from The Single Guy show up for a bit, only to quickly be killed by a flying pipe or rock. (See, because the killer is invisible...never mind.)
Then comes the copout. When Bacon's staff members decide to pull the plug on the whole shebang, he goes completely nuts and stalks them all in a final half-hour sequence that looks like any other horror movie ever made. The whole thing becomes a haunted house movie, and a pretty silly one at that. What a waste! Why not have him outside wreaking havoc and grabbing even MORE breasts? Why not let the audience live out some fantasies? Heck, I don't know about you, but if I became invisible, I don't think my first plan would be to kill all my friends. Well, maybe.
It's not the director's fault, unless the director actually gets to read the script he's filming. In that case, then yeah; Verhoeven should have added a little subtext or even some darkness to the movie. The visual aspects alone earn a recommendation. There's nothing really awful about the movie, so it's easy to recommend it what with all the invisible monkeys and vanishing internal organs. But with the questions and cleverness that Hollow Man could have proposed, it's a shame it ends up as your typical ghost story.
Paul Verhoeven's movies usually work on more than just a visual level, so maybe it's his fault that I expected something smarter. The final result is a movie you can have fun watching, but the script is just hollow, man.
What would you do if you were invisible? How far would you go? After years of experimentation, Dr. Sebastian Caine (Bacon), a brilliant, but arrogant ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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