HOLLOW MOVIE
by Sasha Stone

If you could be invisible, what would you do? Or, as the Paul Verhoeven film HOLLOW MAN puts it more directly, imagine the things you could do if you didn't have to look at yourself in the mirror. You would think that all men out there secretly want to terrorize women, to rape and molest them, to take what's rightfully theirs without worrying about getting arrested. Or sued. Thank goodness it's only a movie, and only a Paul Verhoeven movie at that.

The ever-versatile Kevin Bacon plays Dr. Sebastian Caine, an extraordinary" genius who can do it all, be it all, have it all. There's just one problem. He has nothing - no life, no love. In short: he's hollow inside long before he becomes literally hollow. When we first meet Caine he's attempting to crack a code for reversal, that is, to make visible what was once made invisible by a special serum. "Damn!" he cries as he fails at his first attempt to build the code. He leans back, looks up at the ceiling, where he's taped a big sign that says "You should be working!" then walks over to his window where he sees his neighbor undressing before an open window. Just as she's about to reveal her nakedness she shuts the drapes. "Damn," he says again, more quietly. Suddenly, it hits him. He sits back down at his computer and voila! He cracks the code.

Caine notifies his team and soon they are trying the serum on Isabelle, an invisible gorilla. Once the film moves away from the plot it can and will rely on its fabulous special effects. As the serum enters the ape's vein, we follow it through to the beating heart and onward until eventually, after a momentary scare, we see Isabelle with all of her flesh, blood and hair. It's enough to make the movie not an entire waste of time and certainly enough to make a tidy profit as one of this summer's surefire hits. But unfortunately, there is a lot more to get through than just the special effects. There's a plot with supposed relationships -- Caine still wants his ex-girlfriend (Elisabeth Shue) to love him but she's taken up with his co-worker (Josh Brolin) and apparently, in the midst of a major scientific breakthrough that could alter the course of human life forever, all she wants to do is screw her boyfriend. Naturally, Caine, being an arrogant scientist with a God complex, wants to be the first invisible man. So, he injects himself with the magic serum and we are treated to yet another astonishing display of visual effects that delineates every vein, muscle and bone as the flesh disappears layer by layer. Once Caine and the others are satisfied with the experiement, they try to bring the mad scientist back. Of course, something goes very wrong. Caine cannot become visible. But instead of using his genius to crack the code himself, he chooses to become your run-of-the-mill stealth killer, hunting down the scientists one by one. It's as if he's become a new species that needs protecting, like the monster in Alien.

Andrew Marlowe's god-awful script (we're talking horrible) tackles the otherwise compelling notion of invisibility the way a twelve year-old might: If you could be invisible what would you do? Why, spy on a naked lady of course! Even more sinister is the idea that a man, if given this ultimate power, would choose violence over, say, giving a woman pleasure. Imagine the possibilities if the invisible man was someone a woman would never touch (Kevin Bacon is way touchable) - how he could make love to her sight unseen? Sadly, nothing this deep ever enters into the film. At least in Joel Schumacher's equally awful Flatliners, the film this most resembles, the characters were confronting something more meaningful than simply playing God. Verhoeven's films often walk a bold line between horror and humor, most memorably in Robocop and even Total Recall. Lately, however, Verhoeven has turned in one disappointment after another, from Basic Instinct to Showgirls. But none of his films have amounted to as little as Hollow Man.While there are glimpses of humor here, it is ultimately overcome by the overall deadness in the writing.

For his part, Kevin Bacon, who struts around confidently in the altogether (we're talking full frontal here, folks) is perhaps the film's only redeemable element, aside from the visuals. Bacon is a good actor, possibly even great. Sure, he'll never live down Footloose. He'll always be six degrees away from getting the really great parts, but he's smart and he's talented, and he deserves better. While the special effects are dazzlers, and some of the futuristic stuff that gets slipped in without fanfare are certainly worth the price of admission, one cannot help but wish for a better script to match the talents of all involved. For instance how about an invisible woman? What would she do? Perhaps that will be saved for the sequel -- Basic Instinct II: Now You See Her, Now You Don't!

Hollow Man was written and directed in a vacuum. One look at the Neilson ratings should have told Marlowe and Verhoeven that we've already found a way to be invisible with Survivor and Big Brother, and God help us, JenniCam. It is fascinating, to be sure. But is that all there is?

CineScene, 2000