HOLLOW MAN ----------
Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a thrill jock genius leading a team of scientists on a U.S. government project to create invisibility. While he's been successful, he's having trouble cracking 'reversion,' or the ability to make the invisible visible again. A middle-of-the-night idea results in the reappearance of the team's transparent ape, but Sebastian isn't ready to tell his bosses about his success until he's tested the process on a human subject - himself - in director Paul Verhoeven's "Hollow Man."
LAURA:
While "Hollow Man" features some truly eye-popping special effects, its lack of character and story development make it one of the most disappointing of Verhoeven's ("Starship Troopers") career. The film opens with a pow as we see a lab rat going through its paces. Suddenly, it's clenched by something unseen, which proceeds to rip its head off, outlining the suspended jaw of a gorilla in blood. This incident is never referred to within the film, yet is one of the only portents that invisibility may breed disturbing side effects.
Caine is quickly established as rather arrogant, a young Turk whose genius causes others to give his behavior leeway. Very efficiently, it's established that his right-hand staffer, Linda (Elizabeth Shue, "Leaving Las Vegas") is a former lover who Caine would like to have back. She's hiding the identity of her current lover Matt (Josh Brolin, "The Mod Squad") from Sebastian because Matt's another high level staffer on Sebastian's team. More workplace complexity is embodied in Sarah (Kim Dickens, "The Zero Effect"), the compassionate veterinarian who clashes with Sebastian's sensibilities (he jokes - or is he? - about vivisecting the ape which almost died from the shock of being brought back to visibility).
Once Sebastian's invisible, the whole group becomes uneasy in their subterranean complex. Janice (Mary Jo Randle) keeps her thermal goggles on while in the ladies room. Sarah awakens with too many of her buttons undone and gets tense. When Sebastian's reversal fails (his skeletal and muscular structures begin to rebuild, then fade back away), a fleshtone mask and gloves are made for him to give him appearance while the group works the problem. This disguise also allows Caine to leave the complex, where he's soon wrecks havoc with the power of his invisibility (although a long-rumored rape scene is cut perfuntorily and never referred to again). Linda ultimately decides to come clean with their funders, but Caine turns the tables by murdering the project head and locking the entire team into the underground bunker.
Kudos to Kevin Bacon for putting up with the grueling labor required to blank himself out for the camera - he was required to wear three different body suits (complete with colored full eye contacts) in order to 'appear' when hit with water/liquids, steam, smoke, etc. However his leap from arrogant jerk to murderous maniac doesn't allow him to do much in the way of acting. Shue should stay away from scientest roles as demonstrated by "The Saint." While she's not required to wear knee socks with a lab coat in this film, she is required to run from mark to mark proclaiming each subsequent victim's death before going into Sigourney-Weaver-in-"Alien"-mode. Brolin's OK as the second banana who touches off Caine's rage while the remaining cast are simply dead meat.
The effects are pretty neat, but I was always aware I was watching computer generation - the scaling back and subsequent rebuilding of the human body from the inside out looked like 3D modelling conducted on a lab bed. Slicker were the partial impressions of the invisible when exposed via another medium.
The screenplay (Andrew W. Marlowe, "End of Days") does nothing but move the action along with little in the way of explanation for Caine's moral degradation other than the concept that invisible eyelids don't allow one to catch many Z's. A long, drawn out climax is hoary indeed. I've seen one too many film's end where the surviving hero(es) climb up a tall shaft while water or fire approaches and wouldn't it be refreshing indeed for the bad guy to stay dead the first time he's offed?
C-
ROBIN:
In 1933, director James Whales scared and titillated people with his adaptation of the H.G. Wells story "The Invisible Man." That film, with the wonderful special effects created by John Fulton and the introduction of Claude Raines to the screen, set a level of achievement that has been often sought, but rarely attained. Director Paul Verhoeven ("Starship Troopers") makes a valiant, but vain, attempt to bring the classic tale into the new millennium with "Hollow Man."
Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a brilliant, egotistical scientist who has broken new ground with his research in invisibility. His experiments in making his lab creatures invisible have been quite successful, but he has had major problems bringing them back. The protocol he designed is too unstable to safely bring back visibility until he has a brainstorm that may be the breakthrough he needs. When Sebastian and his lieutenants, Linda McKay (Elizabeth Shue) and Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin), go before a government committee, the scientist lies about his latest idea and asks for more time.
Sebastian, before he publicly announces his anticipated achievement, wants to take the next crucial step in the experiment - use a human test subject. He lies to the rest of his staff, telling them that the committee approved the leap to human subjects. Caine then subjects himself to the invisibility serum and enters a brave new world - the first invisible man. But, his brainstorm wasn't quite right and, when Linda and Matt attempt to bring him back to visibility, the return to normal fails. To complicate matters, the invisibility drug has side effects that make the subject uncontrollably violent. It's a race against time as Sebastian goes power mad and Linda, Matt and the rest of the staff have to stop him.
Paul Verhoeven may believe that he has created a modern version of the Whales' classic horror/monster flick with "Hollow Man." He hasn't. What he has done is to make a version of a cool story that capitalizes on the F/X technology of today, but fails to capture the essence of what made the 1933 film such a landmark event. The problem is, there isn't a fresh approach to the story. Instead, the screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W. Marlowe is a rehash of many of the mad scientist movies of the 50's and journeys into well-traveled science fiction territory.
Why is it that every genius scientist in films like "Hollow Man" always forgoes the rigid rules of research and use themselves as guinea pigs in experiments that are doomed to disaster? The answer is, of course, because we wouldn't be spending our time and money watching a movie about a guy who follows the rules of science and never strays beyond them. That would be boring. Unfortunately, so is the cookie cutter approach made by Verhoeven and company in attempting to recreate the mood and feel of the '33 original. There is nothing new in this latest rendition of the Invisible Man tale, except for some first-class F/X.
Though Kevin Bacon plays the title character, Elizabeth Shue is top billed. The actress does not reprise the power she showed in Mike Figgis's "Leaving Las Vegas." Of course, there is a big difference between the character intense nature of her earlier film and the F/X extravaganza of "Hollow Man." Shue doesn't get to show any thesping ability here as she, basically, runs around through most of the film and delivers lines like, "He's dead," with no inflection or drama to her delivery. So far, the wow perf that Figgis got out of her has not been duplicated since.
Kevin Bacon, as expected, is a non-person through much of the film. His Sebastian Caine is a smart, arrogant egomaniac in the beginning and, until he becomes a monster, pretty much stays that way. Josh Brolin and the rest of the cast are relegated to background, though Brolin gets a bit more air time as Linda's secret (from Sebastian) boyfriend and subject of invisible Sebastian's ire. The remains of the cast are fodders for the monster to prey on and little more.
Production values are high, especially in the set design by Allan Cameron ("Starship Trooper") and the F/X, led by Scott E. Anderson ("Babe"). The sterile, high tech laboratory is slick in design and, despite the usual cheesy computer stuff, lends a good look to the proceedings. The visual effects are superior with the computer-generated invisibility process and, more subtly done, Sebastian's return to visibility in water, smoke or the spray of a fire extinguisher. Too bad high production values can't save a movie. (See the 1999 Jan de Bont film, "The Haunting," as another example of great F/X and production design wasted.)
A final note to the screenwriters - when you kill the monster the first time, leave it dead, please. "Hollow Man" is yet another example of a film where the monster, beyond all reason, does not die, no matter what the hero does. Here, Sebastian is blasted by searing flame, then electrocuted but he just keeps on coming. The same gaff was seen in the recent, "What Lies Beneath." There the monster wouldn't die either. The cheap shocks get tired.
I give "Hollow Man" a C-.
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laura@reelingreviews.com robin@reelingreviews.com
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