HOLLOW MAN 

Description: Kevin Bacon plays a bad-boy egotistical scientist who heads up a double-secret government team experimenting with turning life-forms invisible. 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. — Amazon.com

If you were to believe Hollow Man, then all scientists either look as hot as Elizabeth Shue and Josh Brolin. They drive flashy sports cars and obviously do a lot of workouts at the gym to look as buffed as Kevin Bacon does. Bacon must spend really a lot of time at the gym, since not only does he accomplish some near impossible feats of physical strength, he is as healthy as they come and is incredibly difficult to kill off. I bet he and other mad slashers such as Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13^th) and Mike Myers (Halloween) go to the same gym.

Hollow Man is the Memoirs of an Invisible Man as written by Jason Vorhees. This isn't very interesting to be honest. Just like those other slasher movies I mentioned, Hollow Man features characters who do incredibly stupid things that makes one shake one's head in utter disbelief. "Let's not split up," one character exclaims. What do they do in three seconds flat? They split up - easier to be killed off by Jason, er I mean, the Kevin Bacon character that way. It's hard to believe that these idiots can find the bathroom, never mind invent human invisibility (by phasing objects out of the quantum plane or something. No doubt they've watched a lot of Star Trek.)

Just like said slasher movies, Hollow Man repeats the false Fatal Attraction ending of "think the killer is dead? Yawn, well, he/she/it isn't" ad infinitum until you wish you were rather watching the first Terminator movie in which this thing sort was done better, but even back then seemed pretty stale.

Now, with director Paul (RoboCop, Total Recall) Verhoeven at the helm one would expect some of his ironic and black humoured cleverness. Someone described his (much superior) Starship Troopers as a smart movie that pretends to be dumb. Well, Hollow Man is a dumb movie that isn't anything else whatsoever.
 

• Don't believe me? Guest reviewer Lawrence Ryan came to similar conclusions . . .
• Read our review of Hollow Man on VCD
• See also: Cold Fusion Video Reviews.
• Read the script.