Highlights include some startling regenerations and disappearances of a gorilla and Bacon himself, which are the finest ever put to screen and pretty disturbing (due to the fact that the subjects of the experiments are in agony while this happens). Where this film does succeed are the special effects, which are, of course, top-notch. Most unforgivable though, is the total waste of William Devane in a cameo appearance. Bacon himself is off screen most of the time, and to be honest his performance is pretty forgettable too. Josh Brolin is instantly forgettable as yet another bespectacled scientist, while none of the other characters are ever developed beyond basics - they're just there to be killed by Bacon. Elizabeth Shue is a boring heroine with little to impress in the way of charisma or personality. But even the horror of the climatic attack (and apparent rape) of a neighbour is ruined by some slap-dash editing which leaves the outcome to your imagination and makes you think "what?!".Įlsewhere, the acting fails to impress on all accounts. One interesting angle of the story is to focus on the 'Peeping Tom' style voyeurism of Kevin Bacon's character, as he spies on undressing neighbours and fondles a sleeping woman while invisible. With a plot like this you can guess most of what will happen and very rarely does the film surprise or shock. As it is, HOLLOW MAN soon descends into typical slasher territory, with a group of people trapped in a single location and being stalked by an unstoppable killer. This immediately loses much of the interest which could have been aroused had the plot taken a different, unconventional direction. Instead of having his invisible fiend on the loose in an unsuspecting world, the scriptwriter decided to place most of the action inside an underground laboratory. Eschewing his patented over-the-top gore, seen in the likes of ROBOCOP and STARSHIP TROOPERS, Verhoeven gives us a middling film which is only too happy to rip off most of its plot points from other, better productions. Unfortunately for us, though, it does fail, and fans of director Paul Verhoeven are in for a big letdown. Reviewed by Leofwine_draca 5 / 10 Imaginative effects, but this is nothing like a Paul Verhoeven filmĪ 21st-century updating of THE INVISIBLE MAN with the added bonus of state-of-the-art special effects? It's a plan which sounds like it can't fail.
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