Hollow Man (2000)

Director:

Paul Verhoeven

Writers (WGA):

Gary Scott Thompson (story) and
Andrew W. Marlowe (story) ...

Release Date:

4 August 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

What would you do if you were invisible? How far would you go?

Plot:

Scientists discover how to make people invisible, but their test subject becomes an insane killer who stalks them.

Plot Keywords:

Invisibility | Experiment | Fire Extinguisher | Insanity | Loss Of Control

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 7 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Elisabeth Shue	...	Linda McKay
Kevin Bacon	...	Sebastian Caine
Josh Brolin	...	Matthew Kensington
Kim Dickens	...	Sarah Kennedy
Greg Grunberg	...	Carter Abbey
Joey Slotnick	...	Frank Chase
Mary Randle	...	Janice Walton
William Devane	...	Dr. Howard Kramer
Rhona Mitra	...	Sebastian's Neighbor
Pablo Espinosa	...	Ed, Warehouse Guard
Margot Rose	...	Mrs. Martha Kramer
Jimmie F. Skaggs	...	Wino
Jeffrey Scaperrotta	...	Boy in Car (as Jeffrey George Scaperotta)
Sarah Bowles	...	Girl in Car
Kelli Scott	...	Mom

Also Known As:

Hollow Man - Unsichtbare Gefahr (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality/nudity.

Runtime:

112 min | USA:119 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS (8 channels) | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Malaysia:18SG (uncut version) | Malaysia:U (cut version) | Australia:M (TV rating) | USA:R (certificate #36734) | Singapore:M18 (re-rating) | Brazil:16 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Japan:PG-12 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG (cut) | South Korea:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:18 | Ireland:18 | Philippines:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

To achieve convincing visibility underwater in the pool scene, the effects crew made countless experiments with transparent objects and transparent molds of body parts underwater. In the end, the entire body of Kevin Bacon, including hair, was painted black for the scene because black gave the best contrast underwater.

Goofs:

Continuity: When they put the reversal liquid into the ape a rubber band was used to help find the blood vessel. When they did the same thing for Sebastian no rubber band was used but they were quickly successful at finding the vessel.

Quotes:

Sebastian: You know what, Matt? It's amazing what you can do... when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror any more.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Heroes Unmasked: Voices (#1.7)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Power Struggle

Hollow Man takes an abundance of fantastic special effects and narrative possibilities and reduces it all to an expensive but cheesy horror movie.

Ever since the original Halloween was released in 1978, there have been countless imitation films that desperately, although primarily unsuccessfully, attempt to feed off of the success of that film by copying its premise of a faceless and unstoppable killer. In the late 90s, there have been a resurgence of these films, such as the Scream movies, which started off good and then went sharply downhill with each additional sequel, Urban Legend, and I Know What You Did Last Summer (as well as, God willing, it's only sequel, I Still Know What You Did Two Summers Ago). Hollow Man is a film that takes a fantastic premise and reduces it to yet another of these cheap imitation slasher films.

Sure, the whole invisible man thing has been done before. Done to death, if you include literary examples. But let's face it, the possibility of human invisibility is one of the most fascinating premises that you can possibly tell a story about. The unfortunate thing about Hollow Man was that no one involved with the making of the movie seemed to realize that. What you have here is the development of an invisibility serum (as well as a reversing visibility serum) by a brilliant scientist, who successfully uses it on a gorilla in some of the best special effects scenes to date, and then uses it on himself. Well, of course he uses it on himself, what scientist could possibly resist? And why would any scientist WANT to resist? Well, the reason may be that, evidently, invisibility serum turns even the most intelligent scientists into raving madmen.

The absolutely infinite amount of possibilities for an invisible character are completely ignored here in favor of turning him into yet another bland faceless killer. This time, we may know who it is that's trying to kill people, but what we don't know is why he completely ignores the outside world. This is the greatest scientific discovery of mankind, and this bonehead decides to use it to become a peeping tom and to spy on his girlfriend. This vast and hugely unfortunate simplification of the potential for the story of an invisible man is both bitterly disappointing and more than a little insulting. As Roger Ebert mentions in his review of Hollow Man, it seems that director Paul Verhoeven, who directed such great films as RoboCop and Total Recall, seems to think that his audience is so intellectually dim that they prefer a mindless killer to the incredibly imaginative villain (or protagonist) that Dr. Sebastian Caine could have become.

Hollow Man is an absolutely fascinating display of brilliant special effects, which seem to map out internal anatomy just as good as any medical textbook, and is also a great deal of fun as the visible characters desperately try to make Dr. Caine visible again, but it is a dismal failure on the story level. The film starts out with a gigantic amount of intelligence, both that required for the development of an invisibility serum and that involved in the brilliant premise of the story, but winds up in the end as nothing more than yet another mindless thriller, completely lacking in thought and intrigue.