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Amazon.co.uk
In Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man, Kevin Bacon plays a bad boy egotistical scientist who heads up a double-secret government team experimenting with turning life forms invisible. How do we know he's a bad boy? Because he (a) wears a leather overcoat, (b) compares himself to God, (c) drives a sports car, and (d) spies on his comely next door neighbour while eating Twinkies. Sadly, this is the most character development anyone gets in this slightly undernourished action/sci-fi thriller, which does boast some amazing special effects along with some amazingly ridiculous plot twists. After experimenting rather ruthlessly on a menagerie of lab animals, Bacon finally cracks the code that will turn the invisible gorillas, dogs and so on, back into their visible forms. Does it work on humans? Faster than you can say "six degrees," Mr Bacon appoints himself human guinea pig, strapping down for an injection of fluorescent-colored serum.Thanks to some phenomenal, seamless and Oscar-worthy computer effects, Bacon is indeed rendered invisible, organ by organ, vein by vein. And what's the first thing you'd do if you were invisible? Why, spy on your female co-workers in the bathroom and molest your comely next-door neighbour, of course! Soon, Bacon is thoroughly psychotic, and it's up to Elisabeth Shue (Bacon's co-worker and ex-girlfriend) and hunky Josh Brolin (her current snuggle bunny) to defeat the invisible man, who's picking off the science team one by one. You'd think this would be a prime opportunity for copious amounts of cheesy sex and aggressive violence--which Verhoeven served up so well and so exuberantly in Starship Troopers and Basic Instinct--but if anything, the director seems to tone down the proceedings, and really, who wants a muted Paul Verhoeven movie? Shue (who got top billing and a bad haircut to boot) and Brolin (who, yes, does take off his shirt at least once) generate little heat, and while Bacon does give an effective, primarily voice-oriented performance, his character is so underdeveloped that, well, you can see right through him. --Mark Englehart
Special Features
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9 Superbit
English
English
Region 2
DTS
Dolby Digital 5.1
None
Dutch\English\Hindi
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Customer Reviews
The plot is a little thin. It basically revolves around Kevin Bacon's character, Dr. Sebastian Caine, an egotistical, self absorbed scientific genius who, during the course of his work for the Department of Defense, has managed to render animals to an invisible state and return them to visibility. He does not reveal to the Department of Defense, his financial benefactor, that his work has succeeded. Instead, he ignores protocols and decides that the time has come to take his experimentation to the next level and try it on a human being, himself.
To make a long story short, Caine goes ahead with the human experimentation, only to find that he is unable to replicate the success he had with the laboratory animals and render himself visible again, once rendered invisible. He begins to deteriorate mentally, sinking into an inexplicable and bizarre maniacal state until he is totally out of control.
Moreover, Caine, the acknowledged genius of a scientific assemblage, is aware that he is losing it. Yet, he does nothing to assist in the discovery of what went wrong with the experiment and what could be done to correct the problem. He, instead, inexplicably leaves the solution to the self-acknowledged lesser capabilities of his colleagues. This simply does not compute with the film's portrayal of Caine's inherent character.
Moreover, there is also virtually no explanation for Bacon's rapid descent into apparent madness, where his antics range from naughty and not nice to totally evil and depraved. This is a big hole in the story, and Bacon's character reflects this omission, as the viewer is not moved to feel any compassion for him. The character of Caine is, in essence, just a mechanism used to facilitate a lot of action scenes with great special effects.
Therein lies the rub. Caine, as a character, has no redeeming value or quality. In other words he is no Jekyll and Hyde. He is just Hyde. This is why, I believe the movie has been so panned by most viewers, even though they may not have articulated it as such.
With such great visual effects, I am also surprised that more attention was not paid to production details. A latex mask created for Caine does not appear to have breathing holes for the nostrils. The film also occasionally segues into the absurd. In one scene, the ease with which plastic bags of blood were ripped open with one character's bare hands defied reality. I have a harder time ripping open a plastic bag of carrots. In another scene, Caine's character is torched with a flame thrower over, and over, and over again. Yet, like the energizer bunny, he keeps on going. This was simply not believable. The film is fraught with a number of moments of implausibility.
If you are willing to suspend belief and just sit back and accept the movie at face value, however, one should still be able to reasonably enjoy this movie, as it does, despite the plot holes, have its moments, and the visual effects are dazzling.
Nevertheless, if you are willing to accept this uttermost suspension of disbelief (which is almost always required before seeing ANY movie of this kind) and you just concentrate on more "technical" aspects, like a constantly growing pace and tension in the screenplay, top notch visual effects (for the times) and sound editing, convincing acting (see the funny "making of" part regarding the _very_ specific acting directions the actors were given from the director...), great cinematography, and a SUPERB, tension-rising, spine-chilling score by the late Jerry Goldsmith, (which was worth the admission ticket alone), you might be surprised at how _entertaining_ and actually _good_ this unpretentious sci-fi/horror/thriller can be (in my opinion, at least...).
That said, for the fans of this movie, the video and audio quality of this Blu-Ray version are among the highest I have experienced so far: the image is perfectly clean, with incredible sharpness and contrast, and only a negligible amount of grain (which is a nice surprise, considered that the movie was shot nine years ago). Actually, the images are SO detailed, that in some scenes you can even spot the slight separation between CGI FX and the actual film plates (e.g. the hand of Elisabeth Shue on the digital gorilla fur in one of the first scenes).
The audio, available also in uncompressed PCM, is absolutely astounding, with great separation, power and clarity of surround channels in sound effects (the explosion at 1h:41m is a perfect test for your speakers, your windows and the patience of your wife/neighbors!) and a perfect balance of the haunting, frightening Goldsmith's score.
The only negative point of this release, in my opinion, is that it lacks both commentaries from the director Verhoeven and Jerry Goldsmith himself (a rarity for his fans) which were included on the DVD version, hence the missing star. On the other hand, this version includes some minor cuts that were absent in the standard edition.
Recommended at this price, even just as test disc for your audio/video system. (Even more recommended is the music score on CD, maybe the last "classic" that Jerry Goldsmith left to his fans!) Hollow Man
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