Hollow Man

              STAR RATING

                   INFO

Year: 2000

Running Length: 1:42

Rated: R (for violence, gore, nudity, sexuality, and profanity

Genre: sci-fi / thriller

Cast: Elisabth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens

Director: Paul Verhoven

Screenplay: Andrew W. Marlowe

                                                    PLOT

Brilliant scientist with a God complex Sebastian Caine (Bacon)  discovers the formula to turn invisible. After testing it on animals he decides to try it himself, but once turned invisible he cannot turn back. And he decides he's going to stay this way, whatever the consequences....and he'll kill anyone who gets in his way.

                                                  REVIEW

This seems to be happening atleast once a week nowadays. Hollywood gets a good idea, then dumbs it down hoping audiences will flock to see the latest blockbuster, rather than caring about characters, or dialogue.


The film starts out pretty well Sebstian Caine (Kevin Bacon) and his team of scientists are all part of a government funded program to test the effects of invisiblity on humans, by first testing it on animals. This however makes the animals hostile after a matter of weeks, and they are rapidly getting worse and worse. Then Sebastian breaks the code to sending them back from invisibility, and although it is dangerous (it nearly killed the gorilla they tested it on) it works. So at this Sebastian decides to go under himself, after lying to his government contractors to get more funding he injects himself with the serum. Of course (this is a Hollywood movie) now all he wants to do is be a peeping tom, and kill people. And he does for an hour or so, he continually gets more and more violent and irrational, until finally we get to the beginning of the end of anything good about this movie. The ending is one of the most poor and preposterous endings I've seen in a long time, with everything thrown out the window for explosions.


Why is it movies today always end in one of three things, bad guy killed, lots of explosions, or guy gets girl? This was a so-so movie but convention brought it down, sure it was full of plot holes but if it is entertaining I don't mind. Well this wasn't very entertaining mostly because of the bombardment of cliches thrown at the audience. We get the abovementioned horrible ending, we get the past lover thing between Shue and Bacon, we get the jealousy over Shue by Brolin and Bacon, we get every possible kind of stock character, including the "woman who undresses in front of the open window with perfect breasts and no lines" which is straight out of a horny teenager movie.


The performances were all fine, the actors did the best they could with what they were given. I particularily like Shue who gives a little more dimension to her character than the other actors, and is always nice to look at. Most of the other talent is wasted, because although no one is bad, no one is given a chance to be great. I was saddened the most by giving Kim Dickens a stock role after her great performance in 1998's Zero Effect.


My biggest problem with the film as a whole was the fact that it fell back on every cliche, contrivance, and over-used character in the book. The only thing original in the entire film is the special effects, and I will give them credit they are fabulous, but I am sick of it. I just want one film that has completely original ideas and makes them work. Hopefully I'll get that in The Cell, but I definetly didn't get it here.


-T.J. Larson

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