 Hollow Man, 2000One of the reasons I do not like aint-it-cool-news.com is because of a review I read about this film, Hollow Man. The reviewer, who'd seen the uncut version of the film, said that in the part where Kevin Bacon's character rapes his neighbor... the reviewer actually said that the viewer actually started rooting for Bacon to do his thing. Rooting. Can you believe that? What bothers me most is that Harry Knowles doesn't police his own site. It's sad.I saw the film. On DVD, not in the theaters. And I have to say that this movie is about one obvious thing. Effects. Maybe Paul Verhoeven wanted to do an invisible man movie. Or maybe it was Douglas Wick and Alan Marshall who wanted that same thing. Regardless, the film is a mish-mosh of other films... with a typical plot, bad sub-plots and bad one-liners. All thanks to the writers Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew Marlowe. Thompson wrote a neat sci-fi flick in the early 90's called Split Second with Rutger Hauer... a neat, if recycled, sci-fi flick. Other than that, his other work is for the dogs. He's got two movies coming out that he wrote, this year. The Fast and the Furious and Pursuit. I don't have a good feeling on either of them. Marlowe has got two dogs on his hands. Air Force One and End of Days. Both films were god awful, so we know now that the writers pieced together bits and pieces of other films to make a crap story. It's too bad, because with Verhoven at the helm, this movie could have been fantastic. There are so many problems with the writing, it's not even funny. Marlowe and Thompson use as many tricks as possible to create neat scenes in which the effects can be used... this might be to their credit, but I have to say that there could have been some other interesting situations, situations with more comedy, with more horror and with much more gore that could have come out of this film... with the use of a little something I call imagination. I'd like to point something out, first. On the back of the DVD, Lou Lumenick of the New York Post came up with this stellar line - "Special Effects that are really spectacular - the best since The Matrix." Oh, Lou... come on. The Matrix came out a scant year before Hollow Man, use your head. There isn't a lot I can say about the acting, because all of it takes a drop kick to the effects. Except for Bacon. With all of the shit he had to put up with... the green paint... all that... he still acted ok. But it was the writing that stunk, so any problems with the acting can be focused on the shitty writing. Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens... they were all fine, but nothing incredible. It was interesting seeing Brolin. The last thing I remember him in (that I've seen) was his first work in The Goonies. Weird. Kim Dickens was ok, nothing great. She's been in some ok films including Zero Effect and The Gift... both better performances than this. I'm not a fan of Elisabeth Shue, so I won't comment on her work. Suffice it to say that she can play a hooker and a sex starved scientist pretty well. I can't say enough about this next man... who's helped keep Verhoven's incredible vision to-a-T. Jost Vacano. He's one of the great cinematographers of the last fifteen/twenty years. Follow the link on his name to a biography of his work. Other than that... the only thing to say is that Verhoeven has an excellent way about him of taking normal shots and turning them into cinematic beauty (again with Vacano's help...). He's got a singular gift for gore, suspense and terror. His Robocop is by far (in my opinion) one of the best (if not the best) science fiction films ever made. There is nothing in the running for Verhoeven... except those quashed rumor's about him directing Schwarzenneger again in a film called Crusade... but we shall see. The DVD is a gem. There are enough extra features to make ones head spin... and I think for anyone who digs special effects... the DVD is worth the price. I'm glad I own it. J.P.
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