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What would you do if you couldn't be seen? I guess we have
all wondered this some point in our lives and that is why stories
about invisibility always hold a special fascination for us.
Hollow Man is the latest in a long line of these stories which
starts off with some interesting musings on human morality and
ends with a by the numbers horror showdown using some amazing
special effects.
Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Caine, an obsessive scientific genius
who is part of one of those well funded secretive government
research teams that only exist in the movies. Along with requisite
scientific beauty Linda McKay (Elizabeth Shue) and strait laced
hunk Matthew Kensington (Josh Brolin), the team has been working
with animals on a formula for invisibility. Eventually the time
comes for the formula to be tested on a human being and Caine
volunteers himself. The formula works and Caine becomes the
first human to become invisible. He uses his new power to play
practical jokes, but the jokes become more sinister as he realises
that the formula to make him visible again does not work.
The first hour of this film raise the usual interesting questions
about human morality and whether our morals would be any different
without the controlling influence of other people being aware
of our actions. However, this idea is never really explored
in the second half of the film as the character of Caine becomes
purely villainous with no opportunity for redemption, culminating
in an action packed but disappointing ending.
The actors do a reasonable enough job, but the main stars of
this movie are the special effects team who have created some
breathtaking and inventive scenes exploiting Caine's lack of
visibility. This is a far cry from the old days of the indicating
the presence of the invisible man via a dodgy floating top hat.
My minor gripe is that if the re-visibility formula works from
the inside out (as the blood carries the potion around the body),
surely the invisibility should work the same way (rather than
outside-in). Of course this would have much more boring to watch
which is why, I suppose, they chose to show it the other way
around.
Overall, Hollow Man is not quite as good as it probably could
have been, but the special effects are hard to beat.
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