Review: Hollow Man

Dir: Paul Verhoeven (Robo Cop)

Cast: Kevin Bacon & Elisabeth Shue

Category: Sci-Fi

Plot: Kevin Bacon is the cocky research scientist who leads his research team to a remarkable discovery. His research team (which includes Elisabeth Shue) has discovered the secret of making people invisible.

DVD Special Features: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only), Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby, Commentary by director Paul Verhoeven, Kevin Bacon and Andrew Marlowe, Production notes, HBO Making-of Special: "Anatomy of a Thriller," Isolated Music Score with Jerry Goldsmith Commentary, Fleshing out the Hollow Man: 15 Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes, Three Deleted Scenes with Paul Verhoeven Commentary, X Picture in Picture Comparisons,Talent Files (Paul Verhoeven, Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Joey Slotnick and William Devane), Widescreen anamorphic format

Load of stuff but it can’t save this bad movie. I found the making-of featurette weak and full of self praise.

The Good: This film has very little to rave about so I will take the obvious way out. The computer generated graphics looked cool. The phasing in and phasing out was the highlight of the movie.

Honorable mention does go out to Elisabeth and how well she wears her tight t-shirts. Never has science looked so good.

The Bad: This movie is amazingly devoid of suspense. You would think that an invisible man movie would be loaded with creepy scenes and good scares. Unfortunately all the attempts at suspense fall very flat.

This movie drags out the worst of the horror film clichés. The villain who would not die. Once Kevin Bacon becomes invisible and goes crazy he becomes Superman. He is lit on fire with a propane torch, brained with a crow bar and exposed to a massive explosion and he still wants to kick some ass. The last half-hour of this movie is a total waste of talent and big budget.

Bottom Line: Pretend you don’t see it on the shelf... Just walk on by.

Rating: 2 boxes of wine