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Poster art from amazon.com
Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Caine, an egotistical but brilliant scientist. The script makes us know that he's an egomanic early on, but when Bacon is invisible, they seem to make us forget that. In fact, he's so self-oriented that he names all of his medicines after himself. OK, we get it! Anyway, he and his team are working on making objects invisible. Why not? So after not getting approval from the government, Sebastian goes ahead and tests it out on himself.
But, alas, that wouldn't be much of a movie. Sebastian's team, which includes Linda (Elisabeth Shue) who is Sebastian's former lover, Matthew (Josh Brolin), Linda's secret lover, and Sarah (Kim Dickens), who happens to be a vet, can't turn him back to his visible form. And, of course, Sebastian goes mad.
Special effects are the film's saving grace. We see all of Bacon's transformations into visible beings and invisible beings, and, despite being somewhat gruesome, were very intense and actually looked real (except I don't really know what everything in the body look like). When Bacon had his facemask on, I totally believed that it was Bacon who was invisible. The script didn't do that. The special FX did.
On the other hand, the script, as I've said before, isn't exactly on a Shakespearean level. It's not even on a Sesame Street level. It's something that director Paul Verhoeven realized that he needed to have in order to make a movie so called it together at the last minute. You can tell how deep it is when all the dialogue is what's happening. "It's coming down!" "Keep climbing!" And the script had a lot of medical/scientific mumbo-jumbo. Don't expect us to know what you're talking about. Round to the lowest common demonator.
You could call this a "popcorn movie", except there isn't a lot of action or exciting scenes it it. In fact, I wasn't thrilled at all. I was entertained, but not tense. The only action was at the tacked-on end that seemed too abrupt. If there had been a steady amount of action all throughout, it would have been easier to swallow.
The movie didn't know where to go. It didn't hold onto one plot. Hollow Man tried to appeal to many demographs: thrill-seekers, action afficondos, romantics, 30-year-old dateless men. It, however, didn't really let us explore on those. And the characters, although we know some about Sebastian, we know diddly-squat about the other half-dozen supporting characters, who just seem to be there when the "script" called for it.
Well, there you go. Hollow Man is an entertaining but thrill-less movie with special effects out the wazoo but nothing underneath the surface (hence the name Hollow Man?)
Rated R for strong violence, gore, insides of bodies, language and some nudity.
Review Date: November 18, 2002