Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 4, 2000, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
On one level, Paul Verhoeven seems an odd choice to do a hi-tech update of the invisible-man genre. This, after all, is a director who has made his rep on showing it all and being as explicit as possible, making him an interesting selection for a subgenre that pivots on what is not seen. Needless to say, he still manages to bring his enthusiasm for carnage to Hollow Man; through the magic of updated FX, we see the title character vanish from sight layer by visceral layer, and the dispatching of his victims is as gruesome as possible (one even splatters a room—and her invisible attacker—with blood before he lays a hand on her). What’s missing, unfortunately, is the attention to character Verhoeven demonstrated in Total Recall and RoboCop, or the satiric underpinnings of the latter film and Starship Troopers. Like its title character, Hollow Man is technologically accomplished, but doesn’t have much meat on its bones.
That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have its surface pleasures, chief among them the performance of Kevin Bacon as Dr. Sebastian Caine, the arrogant project head of a scientific team working on an invisibility project for the Pentagon. Showing no signs of his encroaching middle-agedom, Bacon makes Caine magnetically self-possessed, a brilliant man who’s aware of his own brilliance and has a sense of entitlement to match. He’s obsessed with his work, but he’d also like to know who Dr. Linda McKay (Elisabeth Shue), his old girlfriend and a partner in the project, is currently sleeping with. For obvious reasons, she’d prefer he didn’t know her current beau is another co-worker, Dr. Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin).
Once the team have successfully returned a test gorilla from invisibility (a bravura sequence that nonetheless blunts the wow factor of the serum’s later effect on a man), Caine decides to apply their work to a human test subject—himself—before the government can usurp the project. It’s evident what’s coming next—Caine’s condition will allow him to take his voyeuristic and vengeful tendencies to violent ends—but the movie also aspires to be a psychological portrait of a man who destroys himself (and can’t keep himself from destroying others) via his own science. All one needs is to compare Hollow Man to The Fly to see where the new film falls short, thanks partially to a script by Andrew W. Marlowe (End of Days) that quickly sinks into formula.
Caine’s descent into madness isn’t embellished with much emotional depth, nor is the capable supporting cast given much to work with. There’s a well-played bit in which one of Caine’s underlings (Greg Grunberg) gets off on Caine’s recounting of his exploits, but this character thread ends up leading nowhere. By the last half hour, Hollow Man devolves into a basic slasher film in which the only wrinkle is that the killer can’t be seen.
That said, Hollow Man remains entertaining on a slick, superficial level; if he doesn’t offer much to think about, Verhoeven does provide polished visuals (in tandem with cinematographer Jost Vacano) and a swift pace, with visual FX that are indeed astonishing to behold. The recurring image of Caine wearing a latex mask that makes his head into a talking balloon is a strangely creepy one, and Verhoeven does a lot with the sound FX too, taking advantage of audio technology to allow the invisible Caine’s voice to project from odd corners of the theater. It’s just a shame that on balance, Hollow Man ends up proving its basic message—technology without humanity can be a bad thing—all too well.
