अनहोनी

Hollow Man is a ride, baby. It isn't scary as the ads would have you believe, but I'll be dammed if it isn't one of the most entertaining horror flicks I've seen in a while. In this age of computer generated, digital effects I have a hard time telling good special effects from bad (they all start to look the same after a while), but this one has a few of the most impressive sequences I've ever seen on film. I assume this is one of the most special effect-intensive movies ever attempted (aside form the latest Star Wars), and they do dazzle, so it's a shame the story doesn't quite measure up. It starts to get a little tired in the third act, but what the hell, I was entertained.

Aside form Kevin Bacon, there were no real stand-out performances in Hollow Man. The invisibility serum seems to bring on severe emotional instability in animals, so Bacon's character decides to try it out on himself. Problem is, Kevin is already nuttier than squirrel turds so this is not the smartest of decisions, but he runs the project, so he calls the shots. Mayhem ensues. This is a really clever idea for a horror film, and the smart ways the scientists think of to detect Bacon in his invisible form never ceases to impress. It's nice to see technology has finally made it so that they can do just about anything you can think of in film.

Paul Verhoeven is what makes this movie most attractive for me. I really love his go-for-broke, over the top directing style, and it's put to good use in this one especially. He took a step in the right direction by distancing himself from hack-supreme Joe Esterhaus in the entertaining but flawed Starship Troopers, and now he's back on his feet again. I can just picture him screaming like a madman on set, frothing at the mouth for "more blood, MORE BLOOD!". He doesn't shy away from gore, violence, sex, or anything. He just jumps right in. I like that. This movie is worth about an 8/10 stars. Worth the price of admission for the effects alone. G'night!

Some viewers complain "this is not scary". Well, no, not in the way that a typical horror film is scary. Instead, this is more of a psychological thriller. If you remember the 1933 Universal film "The Invisible Man", you only meet the Invisible man after he has already gone insane. What happened before? This film is more about what could have happened beforehand, although the film only takes the basic idea and sets everything in present day.

Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a brilliant scientist who, unfortunately, is not independently wealthy. Thus he relies on the military for his funding. He manages to make a gorilla invisible then visible again with serums he has invented with said funding, but then lies to the oversight committee about his progress, although this threatens to shut his project down. He convinces two of his team members -Linda McKay (Elizabeth Shue) and Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin) - to go straight to human testing without telling the oversight committee or informing the other team members that they are going rogue. Sebastian says he will be the human test subject.

Now Sebastian is a bit of a creep to begin with . He was formerly involved with McKay, but they broke up and now - unknown to Sebastian - she is seeing Matt. But Sebastian has now become obsessed with McKay once again. So the team makes Sebastian invisible but attempts to make him visible again fail repeatedly. Sebastian goes from at first playing pranks on the team members using his power of invisibility, to growing increasingly agitated, angry, and violent as he is trapped in this invisible state and feels like a lab rat. What makes him lose it completely is when he finds out about Linda and Matt's involvement. Even before he loses it completely, though, he has been taking to the streets and doing some increasingly evil things given that he cannot be seen and therefore be held responsible.

The concluding half hour is lots of edge-of-your-seat suspense, is somewhat Die-Hardish, and then parts of it are just plain gross. The film makes good use of special effects, especially when Sebastian is transforming between being visible and invisible. Unlike today's films, though, the special effects are used to accentuate the story, not replace it. I'd highly recommend this one and do not understand the current low rating.

This could, and should, have been an interesting look on the idea of invisibility. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, they ran out of ideas and decided to just kill everyone off and have it end in huge explosions, demonstrating a total lack of creativity. Too bad. It could have been great, were it not for the total lack of good acting, the one-dimensional characters, the corny lines and the general lack of anything worthwhile in the movie at all, other than good special effects. I feel bad for Paul Verhoeven; he used to make great movies; RoboCop, Basic Instinct & Starship Troopers were all way better than this mainstream garbage. The only good thing about this movie is the special effects, and, believe me, they are good. They are just not good enough to distract the viewer from all the negative points about the movie. It's really too bad that they couldn't make a better movie about invisibility; we've never had a truly good movie dealing with the rush of power it would be to be invisible. This movie tries, but it just falls short. All those great special effects, and no good movie to back them up. I'd only recommend this to special effect nerds, people who'll watch a movie regardless of quality just to see good special effects. I can't imagine anyone else actually enjoying this movie. I gave it a 6/10, but only because of the special effects.

Sebastian Caine and his team have worked tirelessly to develop a formula that can not only turn animals invisible but also bring them back to normal at will. With Governmental pressure on them to show results, Sebastian decides he will be the first human to try the formula. He becomes invisible for a short time, however efforts to bring him back fail and he finds himself stuck. As work continues on the formula, the others in the lab begin to notice him becoming increasingly unhinged.

From director Verhoven the norm is to expect great special effects and violence. He has also been known to integrate themes and good stories into these mainly effects driven films. On this occasion however he fails to really do that and is left with a fast paced and enjoyable film that makes up in effects what it lacks in substance. The plot is pretty basic and never goes deeper – Sebastian's descent into madness is not really a descent so much as a short trip that is not really built to so much as just delivered. In it's placed though, the effects are really impressive and make the film worth seeing simply because, not only are they great, but they are also used very well in the action rather than just being the film in themselves.

The cast is OK but don't really have much to work with in terms of material. Bacon is much more interesting when not on screen than when he is. His character is too thin and he fails to portray any sort of `descent' in his character's behaviour. Shue is pretty good and seems to enjoy running round with a flamethrower. The rest of the cast are OK but basically just act as fodder in the way that a normal slasher movie will have actors to be disposed of as the film rolls.

Overall I really enjoyed this film as it is a very expensive special effects movie which relies on spectacle to keep things moving. The effects are great and take the mind away from the lack of real substance and the action at the end is very enjoyable. A really good special effects movie as long as you don't expect anything more.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. The acting was quite adequate, the film score very imaginative and the special effects amazing (and gruesome). It copies "The Invisible Man", made half a century before, in having its protagonist lose his mind but unlike the other film, there is no humor to be found - nor any reason for it. It is a bit too apocalyptic near the end and I felt that the special effects turned it perhaps too much into a technical spectacle, but it made sense in general and brought me more pleasure than I had expected. Kevin Bacon was certainly up the his part and William Devane was frightening in his brief scene,

Curtis Stotlar