Unoriginal script and idea, but a highly entertaining ride nonetheless...

crowrobot

With 'Hollow Man', Kevin Bacon has come full circle. An actor who has made a career out of being nice guys, Bacon finally gets to sink his teeth into Paul Verhoeven's latest gorefest. It's an unoriginal, uninspired movie, but the awesome special effects and Bacon's menacing performance help make it into a deliriously entertaining popcorn thriller.

Bacon plays Sebastian Caine, a scientist whose team includes Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin. They're working on an invisibility serum, and when Sebastian injects himself with it, the results are terrifying. Soon after the shock has set in, the team learns that the antidote serum won't work. Sebastian gets desperate until finally, he discovers just how cool being an invisible man can be. The rest of the movie involves Sebastian turning into a loonytoon madman, raping his neighbor (it's implied, unfortunately) and killing off his team members one by one. Can he be stopped?

The second half of this film is plagued with the usual flaw of horror movies: Characters doing extremely stupid things that make you want to scream at them, "You *idiot*! Don't go in there!" But they're done here with a visual flair and lots and lots of blood. The invisibility special effects are simply AWESOME. Director Verhoeven is apparently good at this sort of movie (this is the first movie by him I've seen), and I think Hollywood should forgive him for the legendary stinker 'Showgirls' (although I haven't seen that film, I've heard it sucks big-time).

All the acting is OK, save for Bacon: His fearsome performance is what holds the movie together. Elisabeth Shue, coming off her Oscar-nominated turn in 'Leaving Las Vegas', does a good job, although most of her role consists of yelling. Josh Brolin is okay, and so are the other soon-to-be-doomed characters. There's one moment where, being a long-time ducktape user, I laughed: Shue uses ducktape to stop Brolin from bleeding. That should tell you that this movie is unconcerned with reality. But that's okay. This movie is really, really cool and I highly recommend it.

score 10/10

crowrobot 14 June 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1103392/