Customer Reviews

Hollow Man

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(56)
2 star:		(57)
1 star:		(65)

 

 

The two obvious flaws with Hollow Man are the character development and the last half-hour. Major flaws indeed, but flaws that could have easily been repaired. One could easily blame Verhoeven himself, but close inspection of the film reveals several glimmers of potential insight that give one the hope that this is merely another example of High-Budget Hollywood Hijinx. This is one of the films that I long to see the original script for, to see how much on-screen was films execs utilizing their standard High-Budget sci-fi Special-Effects Extravaganza Formula (I find it hard to believe that screenwriters across the country are all convinced that what their big finale really needs is yet another big explosion).

The movie starts with a glimmer of hope, but the ending devolves into yet another Aliens wanna-be (`My God, we're locked in here with the monster/creature/alien/madman/senator, and there is nowhere to run, therefore we must track down and defeat our slippery foe!') where the cast you've failed to gain any real affection for is slaughtered one by one in unique and interesting ways. It is the ultimate insult, that H. G. Wells' classic sci-fi tale of man's inherent evil has been reborn as an expensive hack & slash horror film. I have nothing against hack & slash, mind you. But there is a time and a place for everything, and this was neither the time nor the place. Not that I'm arguing against the film's depictions of violence, despite that fact that the film degenerates to the point where characters are actually throwing bags of plasma around the room in a cheap attempt to get as much blood as possible without too much MPAA approved violence. On the contrary, the films opening scene alone had a brutality and vividness to it that gave rise to my expectations (which were soon to be dashed against the rocks of a cheesy Hollywood ending). It effectively depicted the danger and foreboding of an unseen aggressor, like an extreme case of "Fearing the Unknown".

I've also found people who complained, not that the film was violent, but that it was vulgar. Yes, it seems that Kevin Bacon makes up for his lack of nudity in Stir Of Echoes (The Rev Rates It 8) by showing as much Bacon Behind as possible. In fact, voyeurism becomes (or should have become) a major theme of the film, and not just through the aspect of an invisible man spying unawares. The parallel to the `Peeping Tom' aspect is the growing concern with the other scientists with not only seeing the invisible scientist, but constantly monitoring him as well.

As for main character, in this case he is weak because he leaves little room for dramatic development. Sebastian Caine's descent into madness isn't as much a plummet as it is a hop from the curb. The head scientist is an egomaniacal, manipulative, frustrated workaholic. Gee, lets give the power of invisibility and see if it corrupts him. Instead of giving the film yet another form of Instant Evil (just add unlimited power, and watch your Chia Villain grow!), so much more could have been said about man's nature by corrupting the soul of someone you wouldn't expect to turn on his fellow man. The double-meaning title of the film itself pointed in the proper direction, yet failed to follow. Hollow Man not only referred to the eerie sight of seeing through the eye holes of a mask to the back of the head, or of clothing encompassing nothing as if a hollow shell. It also referred to Sebastian Caine, a `Hollow Man' containing nothing within but shallow desires and relentless hunger for power. While there are moments where this is eluded too, the film goes off on other little diatribes that detract from this, losing its real strength by trying to appear more involved than it allowed itself to be.

In the end Hollow Man became a Hollow Film. It starts off showing the promise of a truly inventive film with a brain as well as a soul, and winds up as nothing more than another schlock sci-fi/thriller effects extravaganza with nothing to say but `Boo' and `Kablam'! And that, dear viewer, is the true horror.

Director Paul Verhoeven (Showgirls, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct) puts out another stinker, this time a sexually explicit (although tamer than usual for Verhoeven) look at the Invisible Man genre.

Kevin Bacon stars as Sebastian Caine (with that name you know we're in for it), a research scientist working on an invisibility potion for the military. After a (just barely) successful experiment on an ape, he (against the cries of partners Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin) decides to take the next step and inject himself with the serum. The plan is to bring him back in three days, but after the rejuvenation serum fails, he is stuck invisible for over a week.

At this point, Hollow Man veers from mediocre effects thriller to sexually deviant mediocre effects thriller. Caine begins exhibiting the behavior of a teenage boy on the loose, with violent consequences. Bacon does manage to breathe some life into the character, especially at the beginning, but Shue and Brolin are nothing close to believable in their roles.

On the plus side, the special effects are marvelous, particularly with "minor" ones like the latex mask Caine wears to give his face some visible form. You can see through the eyeholes to the back of the mask. Actually, all the "invisibility" effects were stunning, but you can't expect effects to carry a film with a weak storyline. Hollow Man might be good for a late night TV viewing, but I wouldn't suggest paying money for it.

This director's cut pretty much contains all of the deleted scenes from the previous edition with only a few other scenes added in.

They could've included the two commentaries from the other dvd.

I would've liked to see some more new footage as opposed to seeing the old deleted scenes.

HG Wells must be rolling over in his grave. This is yet one more example of clever CGI and a talented crew being wasted on a really lousy script and lazy execution. Gary Scott Thompson (I) and Andrew W. Marlowe are credited for the incredibly poor story and penning. It is mystifying to me how even Marlowe and Thompson, whom we can thank for the awful End of Days and K-911, would be able to screw up the enduring fable of the Invisible Man. For all I know, these two might be capable of intelligent writing, but somehow, somewhere, the Hollywood Bonehead Machine gained a firm grip on this film and turned it stupid. Really stupid.

The classic story of the Invisible Man involves a driven scientist who devises a method to make himself invisible. He tries out the treatment on himself, but there are two problems: 1) Invisibility makes him violently psychotic, and 2) he can't change back.

Besides being a wonderful horror story, it is also rich metaphor for impermanence of self. When I first heard about the making of this film, I thought of how the title Hollow Man promised the exploration of this subject. I imagined reasonably complex characters and at least a nod to the timeless theme of humankind's struggle between id and ego. Instead, what I saw was a combined rip-off of low-rent slasher/Satan flicks, with startling CGI taking top billing over the storyline. The brutal and graphic killings do not energize the movie; they simply tire the audience. The `surprises' are so overused that none of it is surprising, and I am so done with cartoonish, implausible action scenes that I almost needed an antiemetic during this flick. Anyone out there ever survived a flash-fire in an elevator shaft? These characters survive, since the flames are only licking their feet, have no heat, and apparently produce breathable oxygen. This kind of super-action works as camp -- which Verhoeven is very good at (see RoboCop) -- but not as good science fiction, which is what this story deserves to be treated as. The old and boring slasher plot contrivances range from `We're hunting an invisible, psychotic monster, so let's spit up,' to `Gosh, he looks dead so it's probably safe to turn our backs!' C'mon, guys, Halloween was 22 years old when this film was released. This stuff is just not smart anymore. I am embarrassed for Paul Verhoeven and the cast. They are much, much better than this tripe.

Note: This review contains minor spoilers, though there isn't much to spoil, plus you'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you read the review instead of seeing the movie.

I don't think I've ever rushed this fast to give something a bad review. Most of the other reviews say it all...but I desperately *need* to write down how bad this movie is and hopefully purge it from my system. You know, I don't ask for the impossible when I sit down to watch a movie. All I really want from a movie, at minimum, is to be entertained or to escape for 90 minutes or so. The movie started out OK but after the gorilla scene, and the two other invisible transformation scenes, it really went downhill. And got worse.

Oh yeah, in case you haven't seen the trailer, or read a review, the plot is: a group of scientists is working on an invisibility formula, for the government. The leader of the project is smart, but an arrogant jerk. He 'meddles with mother nature' (a no-no in a scary movie) and deliberately deceives people who trust him (again, another mistake) so the formula can be tested on him as the first human. You'll never guess what happens then: things go horribly wrong! People turn to murder! Disaster strikes! You waste 2 hours of your time and a rental fee because you could have just watched the trailer, which gave the whole plot away anyway!

I had low expectations for this movie-all I wanted was for something to surprise me, or there to be a special effect or shock that made me watch the scene/moment again a couple times. Or at least want to. For instance, "Deep Blue Sea" was stupid and mainly lame, but at least had that one big surprise (you know the one I mean-I won't give it away like someone did to me before I saw it). Nope.

I didn't find any of the characters likable. Sorry, but I don't have too much respect for any character in a horror/thriller movie that does any of the following: 1. walks backward when they know they are in danger 2. turns their back on someone dangerous that they've conked/injured and strolls casually away without checking to see if they've really been incapacitated 3. immediately separates when they first realize they are in an isolated area being stalked by someone or 4. says something to the effect of "well, I'm glad *that's* over" when things obviously aren't-and if you've seen even one other scary movie, everyone knows this is always a precursor to the villain/monster immediately swooping down on them again or lunging into frame. This movie has ALL of the above-which I could overlook if the movie was at least slightly entertaining (Bruce Campbell in any of the Evil Dead movies usually does all of the above, but makes it fun to watch, to name just one example).

Also-and I see by the other reviews that I'm not alone here- I get really insulted when, especially on top of all the other crud, a villain conveniently becomes indestructible in the last half hour or so with no explanation. About every possible debilitating injury happens to him and it doesn't seem to slow him down. All that was missing was him being shot and the bullets bouncing off him.

I expected there to be one interesting or memorable concept, especially since (I thought at the time) the movie had such meticulous attention to detail and seemed to take a very high-tech, scientific approach to the story. The trailers and background info on the making of this film, plus how long it took in post-production, gave me that impression. The reviews gave it more credit than it had. I was at first slightly interested in the fact that an invisible character couldn't close their eyes, because they had transparent eyelids. I never thought of that! Hmmm, maybe they came up with some other cool twists. No. That's about as inventive as it gets, and the only new idea they came up with. (then, that got shot all to hell, because about 1 minute later it occurred to me that the person could wear a sleep mask, or go in a completely blacked-out room). An invisible gorilla graphically re-materializing, layer by layer? OK, that hasn't been done before, at least not that I know of, but that's maybe 30 seconds that are slightly interesting. Let's face it, you thinking "hey, good CGI" occasionally is not enough to build a good movie on- in fact, it's a pretty sad statement when that's all you can say about a movie.

I would run out of room if I listed even half the continuity errors. Just look at the goofs page on the IMDB. Now, I'm the type of person who people have to point out continuity errors to before I notice them. Here I noticed ones I didn't even LOOK for. What happened? Did they run out of time? Money? The studio rushed them? What's really depressing is someone probably noticed, but they either were too lacy to care or figured the audience would be so impressed with the CGI that their IQs would drop about 50 points and they'd miss it. Not to beat a dead horse, but if the movie had a character that was interesting, or if any scenes surprised me, or entertained me, I could overlook it being stupid and built around some 'ground-breaking' CGI. Yes, I know what a 'popcorn movie/turn off your brain movie' is, where you just sit back and enjoy the mindless ride. Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Scary Movie- *those* are popcorn movies. It's also not a camp/so bad it's good type movie. Showgirls, Mommy Dearest, Glen or Glenda- those are ones you can sit and make fun of with your friends. No, instead The Hollow Man is just a waste of everyone's time and money, and that's putting it in way more polite terms than I want to.

I would only recommend this if you are a CGI/FX junkie, if you thought "Speed 2" and "The Klumps" were deep, insightful masterpieces of cinema history and you didn't understand why everyone said anything bad about them, or if you really have the hots for Kevin Bacon (though skip the 'becoming invisible' scene, among others, if you don't want to get completely turned off). Interesting premise that goes absolutely nowhere. You have been warned!!

Ok, so I went out on a limb. I actually took time out of my life to pay money at a theatre and watch this movie.

Oops.

Yeah, like many other people will say, the movie does have dazzling special effects. Unfortunately, the acting is worse than terrible. It just downright sucks.

Also... Hello? Plot? Are you in there? I didn't think so.

I know what you all are thinking. And I know, it was my choice to go and see it. But, that doesn't mean that those that haven't should suffer too.

Heed my warning! If you haven't seen this movie, you are already one step ahead of the rest of us. Don't stoop down to our level. Move forward in life and onto other, better movies.

Horrid! This was an awful remake of The Invisible Man. Yes, the special effects were exciting and gruesome. Isn't modern movie technology wonderful? But...so what? Bacon is not a convincing scientist. Renegade--yes. Madman--absolutely. Letch--he was perfect. However, none of these aspects meshed with him being a scientist. He played out like an adult kid who somehow got permission to fool around with very expensive military-scientific toys.

A serious hole in this plot is the notion that the military would fully fund such an over-the-edge project as phase-shifting to create invisibility--and then not demand oversight. We are supposed to believe that a bunch of gen-X scientists would be allowed to run a super-pricey military project without so much as an MP in the laboratory?

If you must view this wretched production, borrow it from the library like I did--there is no waiting list.

I wish I could give this two-hour pain parade no stars, but I'll settle for the lowest rating available to me. This movie just -how to word it correctly- it just sucks. Ten minutes into it, I was unsuccessfully trying to slit my wrists with my soft drink straw. I don't even know where to begin condemning it.

Okay, first off, the acting is really lousy. I mean, the Carrot Top movie had more accomplished actors than this disgrace. Second,the screenplay was at about the writing level of a second grader. The movie lacked all the good stuff, like character development, emotional resonance, tension, and intelligence. Instead, we were left with the standard Hollywood sex and gore, and plenty of it! This movie had more unnecessary blood and guts than all the previous Paul Verhoven movies put together. It was obscene. Speakng of which, there were like fifty scenes of the invisible man molesting his female victims. It was disgusting. And no, I don't needto see Kevin Bacon's nether regions that often, thank you very much.

Some movies are described as bloody car wrecks. "The Hollow Man" is the celluloid equivilent of the Chernobyl disaster. I mean, Paul screwed up big time with "Starship Troopers" and "Showgirls", but at least they were the fun kind of bad. This movie, however, doesn't merely stink. It shouldn't be screened near open flame. If you want more intelligent viewing, try staring at your shoe for two hours. It'll be just as entertaining.

I read many of the reviews on Hollow Man before renting it, but I stupidly thought the FX could make up for a really bad plot and acting...WRONG! The FX are good but your four dollars would be better spent re-renting Total Recall or even Starship Troopers. Kevin Bacon has never been worse, surprising after he was so good in Stir of Echoes, it's not so much his acting because he's only visable for the first half hour, but the dialogue is atrocious. Elizabeth Shue is one of the worst actresses ever, she just got lucky with Leaving Las Vegas (they could have cast a circus chimp and it would have got raves because of Nick Cage), but her true colors come through here. Besides the talentless cast, the plot is simply non-existent. Sebastian just decides to go crazy half way through the movie, OK?! If you are even considering buying this movie, please take your 20 Dollars and flush it down the toilet right now. You'll get more satisfaction from watching it spiral down the bowl than you will from watching this trash.

Paul Verhoeven directed "RoboCop" (1987), "Total Recall" (1990), and "Basic Instinct" (1992). His films all have a hard edge. "Hollow Man" has the edge. It's lacking the brains and heart of the others.

Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a brilliant scientist in charge of a US Government-funded underground facility investigating into invisibility serums. They have the ability to turn animals invisible, but up until now there has been no way to reverse it. Now, Sebastian has found a reversal formula, and it works.

Sebastian, afraid his research will be stolen away from him, keeps all records of progress from the military. He is obsessed with power and he doesn't know what to do now that it's all over. ("It feels like the beginning of the end," he says.) And so without asking for permission from his funding, Sebastian becomes the first human to turn invisible to the naked eye - the only thing that can pick up his traces are heat goggles that look like something out of a science fiction movie. Oh, wait...

The serum starts to take a deadly turn, however, when Sebastian feels that everyone is out to get him. He is afraid his colleagues will turn him in, and so he traps them underground and starts to kill them off, one-by-one.

His fellow scientists include: Linda (Elisabeth Shue, who somehow gets top billing over Bacon), Matthew (Josh Brolin), Sarah (Kim Dickens), Carter (Greg Grunberg), and Kramer (William Devane). Linda was his ex-lover sometime in the past. Now she's going out with Matthew. Sebastian doesn't like this; it's part of what triggers his ferocious outbreak in the first place. In short, the guy goes crazy and there's nothing they can do about it except pray and hunt him down with their little goggles and stun guns.

Sebastian considers himself God. ("How many times have I told you you're not God? I am.") We can tell from the beginning that he has problems with control and superiority. The serum, which has some serious side effects like those you hear in fine print on commercials for medicine, only unleashes his darker side he tries to conceal.

And Verhoeven has a strong handle on the different phases of his personality change, unlike most films. Unforunately, whereas "RoboCop" and "Total Recall" seemed much more serious, "Hollow Man," like his 1997 film "Starship Troopers," feels too over-the-top and goofy for its own good. His earlier films always had a touch of that over-the-top action spectacular stuff. This one has too much.

If there were ever a movie for Paul Verhoeven, it is this. It's the tailor-made film just for him, much like "RoboCop" was. He has free roam to create an invisible man who slowly becomes hostile and hunts his victims. Think about "Total Recall"--remember how Verhoeven's imaginations were perfectly displayed on screen? How real it all was? How gripping and suspenseful?

There's something missing here. It's the perfect material for Verhoeven, and it has his distinctly hard edge, but it is dumb, and it feels more like an average slasher movie with a large budget than a smart thriller. Especially towards the end, which has its fun parts but becomes over-the-top and quite ridiculous. Of course, the bad guy always gets back up for one last scare, but (spoiler alert!) Sebastian gets up three times. And he's not even supernatural -- he's just invisible. He gets torched with a flamethrower, knocked over the head, electrocuted, and blown up his lab facility. Then he manages to climb up an elevator shaft and grab Linda one last time. HUH? And since when does electricity not spread through water? These guys are extremely advanced scientists, yet they never stop to ponder over why basic science knowledge has just been proved incorrect.

I'm being too harsh. I won't lie. The film has its moments of interest and truly amazing special effects--some of the best I've ever seen in a motion picture, in fact. If "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was an opening for live action/animation and "Terminator 2" was the breakthrough motion picture for pure special effects, this is the next level. It starts with an intriguing premise, just as "RoboCop" and "Total Recall" did, only those two films kept elevating the action, suspense, plot, and emotional attachment, something that "Hollow Man" is lacking. Perhaps a better title would have been "Hollow Movie"?

"Hollow Man" is rated R for strong violence, language, and sexuality/nudity.