Hollow Man

Written by: Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W. Marlow Starring: Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, William Devane, Kim Dickens, Greg Gunberg, Mary Jo Randle, Joey Slotnick

An insultingly poor science fiction thriller, “Hollow Man” is a sorry excuse for even disposable summertime entertainment. It is mind numbing enough to make you swear off big budget Hollywood special effects extravaganzas forever. Fundamentally an updated version of the time honored “Invisible Man” concept, it spends endless, enervating time on a host of phony sounding technical details, a sure sign that it doesn’t have a single new idea in its impoverished little mind. Verhoeven has made some good (“Total Recall”) and some boring (“Starship Troopers”) science fiction thrillers in the past, but here he seems to forget that having a story helps the time pass while watching a movie. The technical elements of the film are well done enough--they apparently have devoted a lot of time and energy to constructing nifty elevator doors, and the cavernous, dreary underground lab in which most of the action (unfortunately) takes place--but that is about all the film has to offer, and it’s not enough by a long shot.

While the special effects teams were obviously working overtime, even the best effect (in this case, the process of becoming invisible--apparently far more painful than depicted in past movies) loses its novelty the second or third time around. Verhoeven has mastered the art of telling his effects people what to do, but he still handles the human elements of story with all the grace and precision of a pastry chef wearing boxing gloves. Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Caine, an annoying scientist prone to muttering things like, “I'm a goddamn genius.” He works on his invisibility project with a group of other scientists, all of whom trade wry quips with each other, and none of whom bear the slightest resemblance to any human beings one might encounter on planet earth. Elisabeth Shue plays Linda, Caine’s colleague and former lover. Shue has proven herself a capable actress in the past, but here she is completely sunk by the awful script. For that matter, none of the actors emerges from this debacle intact; the best they can do is hope that people forget the picture quickly. In a movie about an invisible man, it would seem pretty obvious that a man is going to become invisible.

Therefore, the sooner this happens, the better, because then the movie can begin exploring the interesting part of the premise--what does a man do with this power? “Hollow Man” doesn’t make Sebastian invisible until almost an hour (I checked my watch) into the picture, which is 55 minutes too long to wait. So what has been happening up until that point, you may ask. Not much. We do get to watch a gorilla become visible again, and we hear a lot of gobbledygook about “cracking the reversion” and so forth, none of which holds the slightest interest after about three minutes. When Sebastian finally does become invisible, he mostly mopes around wearing a latex mask, and his adventures (even the prurient ones) are of the most banal, unimaginative sort. I can only hope that if I am ever rendered invisible that I think of more interesting things to do than he does. One thing we can say for sure is that if you become invisible it makes you crazy, because in short order Sebastian goes mad-- mad I tell you! --and starts to wreak rather poorly justified havoc upon his fellow workers. He locks them all into the lab for a final, bloody showdown that is striking in its lack of originality. I’ll let you guess who emerges victorious, plucky Linda and her handsome boyfriend Matt (Brolin), or evil, demented, invisible Sebastian? When I finally stumbled out of the theater, I not only wanted my money back, I wanted my time back, and there is no special effects team in the world that can arrange that. (8/9/2000)