R E V I E W S

Hollow Man (2000)

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Rating: R

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Review Posted: 8.9.00

Rating: 2.5/4

By Dan Peters.

Paul Verhoeven can be a good director... when he wants to be. He's showed us trash before (Showgirls) and he's showed some good/enjoyable movies (Starship Troopers). His latest movie, Hollow Man, is Verhoeven's own story of the invisible man. Unfortunately, while Kevin Bacon and the special effects delight, the rest of the stuff doesn't.

Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Cane, a creepy scientist working on a project to make people invisible. Elisabeth Shue plays Sebastian's ex-girlfriend Linda, and her secret boyfriend is played by Josh Brolin. Those three, along with a couple other scientists, succeed at making a gorilla visible again. The next step: human testing. Sebastian volunteers to be the subject and the experiment succeeds

But being invisible has its major side effects. After a failed attempt to bring Sebastian back, he starts to go psycho. So now his fellow scientists must stop him before they all suffer the fatal consequences.

The Oscar-nominated special effects are one of two highlights in Hollow Man. The scene where Sebastian starts turning invisible really stands out; it starts off just with Sebastian and when Linda injects the formula into his veins, it starts showing every body part of his body (including the heart). The other effects, for example, when a guy blows smoke from a cigar, you're able to see Sebastian, is also well done. So, Hollow Man has some Oscar-worthy special effects and deserved to be nominated for them.

Other highlight: Bacon's awesome performance as Sebastian. But wait a minute! He's invisible most of the time, so how can you say his performance was awesome? The answer is simple: his voice. Kevin Bacon's voice is just creepy, which makes his character even more scary. Kevin Bacon should make more horror movies, especially after gems like 1999's Stir of Echoes.

The other performances, however, aren't worth babbling about. Elisabeth Shue is just plain boring as Linda and Josh Brolin is doubt that. The other character's performances don't really matter since they're hardly in it. They're just people Sebastian can kill off until the big finale.

And speaking of which, the movie is probably 2/3 away from being over when the killing spree begins. I didn't like it being constructed like this, so I had to deduct points from the movie.

I wanted to like Hollow Man more, but I just couldn't. It was poorly constructed and most of the performances were pretty bad. The movie is watchable because of the special effects and Kevin Bacon's performance, but this doesn't make a movie.

TOP